


The Odd-Edged Puzzle

by twistedthicket1



Series: Hum like a Honey Bee [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Genderqueer Character, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Other, Romance, Transgender, Transphobia, ftm Sherlock, it's complicated okay so is gender, mentions of eating disorders, mentions of self harm, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedthicket1/pseuds/twistedthicket1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knows his body. Can tell you every inch of it, every scar, every bone, where everything should be and where everything wasn't. He could tell you the exact register of his voice, how low it dipped when he so chose to make it do so. He could tell you how people see him, how they perceived his form to be. He could reveal how he didn't bother to correct him, the data all unimportant. </p><p>But he cannot tell John Watson, because to tell him would mean disaster. Spell out an end to their friendship forever.</p><p>At least, this is what Sherlock thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Truth Revealed

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a bit of a personal work in some ways. I identify as genderqueer myself, and relate to Sherlock on many of his thoughts as well as his insecurities which will be revealed as I delve deeper into this little series. Bear in mind my own experiences do not speak for others, and that not everyone who identifies as transgender feels this way :) This is more of a way for me to create a soundboard, a thing to work on that I relate to in a personal way. 
> 
> Of course, I also do not own Sherlock in any way, shape or form!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

 

_But you can only lie about who you are for so long without going crazy~ Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish_

 

 

 

When he woke, he knew it was going to be bad.

 

In the early silence of the flat, Sherlock groaned, unwilling to open his eyes even as he lay in bed. He could feel the pressure, crawling under his skin like a thousand fire ants preparing to bite. If he dared to look, they'd sink their teeth into his flesh.

If he kept his eyes closed, he could pretend it wasn't real.

 

But Sherlock Holmes had never been one for flights of fancy, and soon with a scowl he willed himself to move. Willed his body to sit up, pale limbs stretching out akimbo to grip the sheets and steadfastly wrap them about himself like a cape. He refused to allow himself to look down, instead flopping back over and curling into a ball, nerves twisting and snarling in his stomach like knotwork even as upstairs, he could hear the sounds of John Watson waking to face the day. Sherlock didn't stir. He stared blankly straight ahead, lost in his own thoughts. His Mind-Palace.

However his grip on his comforter was white-knuckled and ruthless.

 

He knew it was going to be bad.

 

****

 

John wasn't a detective.

He would be the first to admit he was not Sherlock Holmes. His gaze did not burn with brilliance, his lips did not twist with unspoken words of intelligence. His gait did not hold the restless, pent-up energy of a tiger trapped in a city. He did not have a presence that could inspire grown men to cower.

No.

 

But he wasn't stupid.

Also, he was a doctor.

As well as a soldier.

And there were certain things that were very hard to hide from medical professionals, especially if one is sharing a flat with them. Things even Sherlock Holmes might as well not have even bothered to disguise.

 

He had first found the photographs. Strewn about the flat almost negligently, they were deceptively hidden amongst the pervasive clutter of  _ **221 B.**_ John didn't notice them for nearly the first month, too preoccupied with moving in and getting to know his rather eccentric flatmate, and too distracted by the wonderful and dangerous cases Sherlock attracted to them like wolves.

 

Really, he had only taken note of them when he had spent one evening trying in vain to clean up a little, worried about Mrs. Hudson's inevitable distress when she would find the enigmatic detective had all but shot holes in the walls again. One had slipped and fluttered its way to the carpet as the army doctor had pushed a pile of old cold-cases to the side, and the rounded face that had looked up at John caught his eye almost instantly. Picking it up, John was faced with a rather sour-looking little girl. Her eyes blazed defiantly up at him, blue-green and wide in a thin, rather pinched face. She snarled at the camera, raven curls pulled back with various ribbons and bows so that her expression could be read clearly, though each tumbling wave looked like it was ready to commit treason against the clips. Though the photo was in negative, John could tell that the dress the girl wore was made of crinoline and soft flounces, overly ornate.

 

The kid looked fit to commit murder.

 

They were also, irrefutably, undeniably, a Holmes.

 

John's speculation of just who the little girl might be had been cut short by an almighty  _THUMP_ from the front door just then, a second later the detective himself sweeping into the living room mid-rant over a case-

 

Only to stop dead when he found John holding the photograph. For one second, John felt the horrible and niggling sensation that he had just pried into something very,  _very_ private. For just an instant, Sherlock looked....  _scared._

 

As soon as John blinked though, the expression had vanished. The detective stood deliberately in front of him, shoulders seeming forcibly at ease as he murmured

“Found those, did you?”

 

“She a cousin or something?” John asked, ignoring Sherlock's question in favour of getting answers to his own. Not that he was particularly desperate for the answer, more like curious. There were very few images of his flatmate's relatives lying about, only one picture of a very sullen (and somewhat chubbier) Mycroft and a single image of a stern but graceful-looking woman that John could only assume was the infamous  _Mummy._ This girl seemed to be a ghost, Sherlock having never mentioned her before, and yet her resemblance to the detective was striking. For one, dizzying moment, John almost thought the impossible.

 

_A daughter?_

 

Sherlock however, was quick to respond. He answered instantly, tone cut and precise as he turned to his violin after quickly stripping away his coat. His long, elegant fingers plucked at the strings, letting them hum before drawing his bow like a blade across their middle. The instrument let out a long, mournful note like the swelling of a bell-chime.

“Sister.”

 

John looked up sharply in surprise, his mouth falling open. He was quick however to snap it shut.

“There are  _three_ of you?” He said mock-incredulously, blue eyes widening at imaging not only Mycroft and Sherlock but a  _third_ Holmes running amok through a garden as children. John thought he could imagine the little girl, chasing behind her brothers with a sharp-eyed grin. It came to his imagination almost naturally. He could see Sherlock lecturing his younger sibling, pulling her hair when she annoyed him. He could imagine her retaliation by tripping him in the grass, much like his own sister would have. He could see Mycroft watching over them both with a vaguely put-upon air unfitting for a child.

 

However the detective's response immediately sent a cold feeling twisting through John's gut, dispelling the illusion from his mind.

 

“Were.” That was all the detective said, weaving notes through the air slowly. Sherlock's gaze was distant, somewhere in the past as he let his bow play thoughts he couldn't quite posses. Images that would not leave him, despite his mind's attempts to delete. He did not turn to look at his friend, but he could sense John's sadness, like a heavy thing draping itself on the flat. It felt wrong, leaden with assumptions incorrect and painful.

 

“I'm so sorry, Sherlock.” John's voice was low and gentle, and it paused as if considering.

“Were you two close?”

 

The detective caught his reflection in the mirror, looking at his own sharp features. The cliff-like tip of his cheekbones, those cold-flinted eyes. His curls, once shorn but attempting to grow out again, slightly messy from London's wind. His expression was unreadable.

 

Finally, after an eternity of thought, Sherlock answered.

“More than I'll ever admit.”

_There are days when she's still here._

 

And though John didn't know then, he should have. Because lined with all other evidence, Sherlock's words were telling.

 

****

 

The second time John noticed was when he found the needles. Of course, needles weren't exactly uncommon in Baker street, John being an army doctor and Sherlock being, well, Sherlock. However John was always wary of finding syringes in hidden places, because if the detective was going out of his way to hide them chances were they were going to have at one point at least held illegal chemicals. When John found them, under the bathroom sink in a bin, his first instinctive thought was to panic. A hot, vice-like fear gripped his throat, and he struggled to swallow it away as he rose from the balls of his feet to stalk out towards the living room.

 

The couch at the time had housed one sulking detective, curled onto his side and facing towards the wall. Although John hadn't understood where the black mood had come from at the time, he could still tell that something was eating at his flatmate's disposition, and he paused for a moment to think before he just let himself react (because that would likely only end in a shouting match, one which John was likely to lose). Sherlock was pale and thin as usual, although perhaps just a little more wan since he had refused to eat anything for almost a week now. It was starting to worry his friend more than just a little bit, as his friend had slowly turned into little more than a vegetable, floating in the lull between cases and anything of interest. It was different from his usual sulking, this heavy, oppressive atmosphere that clung to his skinny form like a grey cloud. Somehow; it felt sharper, more dangerous and volatile. Like John might get struck with lightning if he let himself get too close.

 

Still, he couldn't back down. Not for this. Never with something like this. His hands clenched in futility at his sides, and he jaw worked open and closed as he considered his words carefully. All the while, the detective seemed uncaring. Unfocused. Lost in the realm of his own mind. Clearing his throat softly, John spoke.

 

“Sherlock. Be honest with me. Are you...”

He trailed off, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly at his sides. He didn't want to say it. A part of him didn't want to know the answer. However John was nothing if not stubborn. Clenching his jaw, his posture was military-straight as he dared to ask.

“Are you having a danger night? Are you using again?”

 

Finally, Sherlock turned to look at him. Except John wasn't really sure if the detective was really seeing him. There was something distressingly numb in the man's features, something blank and almost... detached.

A sleepwalker.

 

Without a word, he pushed up his sleeves to reveal bare arms. White porcelain skin. Though John should have been relieved, instead he felt a strange ache in the back of his throat. Because Sherlock wasn't insulting him, wasn't calling him an  _idiot_ or  _stupid_ for assuming. Rather, his flatmate was merely looking through him, not actually registering his presence.

 

And John didn't know what that meant.

All he knew was that when he reached out as if to touch him, the detective physically flinched away, crossing his arms over his chest.

 

John wasn't sure whether to be relieved that Sherlock was acknowledging him, or guilty because he had obviously done something wrong.

 

What, the good doctor couldn't say. Now he knew, but then, he couldn't have guessed if he even tried.

 

He did not notice how Sherlock scratched at the inside of his arms almost longingly, or how later on the detective stood to look at his reflection, grimacing at some fault unseen. John did not see the little bottle, labelled  _HRT  _get tossed into the bin with savage brutality.

 

****

The final time John noticed was so obvious, that things finally clicked for the good doctor. Puzzle pieces finally came together.

Sherlock was a mixture of contradictions, at times. He appeared to have no objection towards nudity, but only at certain times, and only from the waist-up. Of course, John at first hadn't noticed the pattern, having only seen Sherlock naked twice, both times at a distance and with a sheet covering everything that mattered. At the time the army doctor had only taken Sherlock's strange insistence that his hips stay wrapped and covered as a rare sign of modesty, but as time went on it became apparent there was more to it than a simple need for mystery and aloofness.

 

However, when that bullet tore into Sherlock's hip, John hadn't cared about modesty. No. He had only cared about the mad man bleeding out on the ground, had only cared about stopping that bright, vivacious red liquid from pouring out onto the pavement like a slow testament to the detective's life. He barely heard Sherlock's protests that he was  _“Fine”_ , instead tugging at the belt to his trousers without a second thought even while pressing a torn piece of his jumper to the wound. The shooter had been rendered unconscious, rather impressively so by John's fist, and his knuckles had stung a bit even as he barked at Sherlock to  _“Stay the hell awake!”._ Sherlock, to his credit, seemed to be doing his best, gasping through clenched teeth over the pain even as he desperately tried to fumble away John's hands.

 

The only thing that made John pause was the half-shuddered sob that wrenched itself free from Sherlock's chest, the garbled  _“Please”_  freezing the doctor in his tracks to take stock of the very real panic and fear on the detective's face.

 

Something about that expression made John halt in his tracks, despite his own internal fear. Despite the desperation clawing its way into his chest as he saw just how much blood his best friend was losing. Sherlock's voice was rough, coarse. It growled, but came across as little more than a weak whine.

“Need... Explain... Not...” Then he broke off and the detective  _Howled_ , and John realised he was pressing much too hard on the wound, that his panic was making things worse. Swearing, John decided he couldn't wait to let Sherlock finish his plea. He had to act  _now._ Already the detective was going limp and pale.

 

“I don't know what you're trying to say, but tell me later, okay? Whatever it is,  _tell me after the ambulance comes._ Until then, just shut up.”

 

Then, ignoring the detective's feeble protests, John worked his belt free from his hips and tugged down, expecting to see blood. Expecting to see a lot of things, really.

 

What he did not expect was  _not_ seeing something, having something be very obviously  _not_ there. John Watson's hands stilled, ears ringing as he stared rather openly at Sherlock's groin area, blinking slightly in shock. For just a second, the army doctor's world tilted on end. His brain shuddered to a stop, pausing for breath. Taking in the new information. Beneath him the detective went perfectly still, breathless and small in his space. Curled.

 

Then Sherlock seized, spine arching as he let loose and strangled cry and very suddenly, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered at all. Nothing that is except the wail of sirens in the distance, and John's frantic attempts to get Sherlock to - _wake the hell up don't do this to me please- _and his hands trying desperately to keep the seeping wound closed.

 

Everything clicked for John Watson, though not until much later, in the waiting room of a hospital.

Not until Sherlock very nearly died from blood loss, and not until the doctor came to him looking very nervous and murmured “Mr. Watson... were you... aware that your partner Mr. Holmes is transsexual?”

 

****

Sherlock's hands wandered over the scars, tracing them lightly. They were pale and silvery from age, but he could still see them, because he knew how to look. Sometimes, he just lay awake in bed, fingers absently wandering along their lines just underneath his nipples, touching and fluttering against them and feeling the tingle of flesh not quite healed. Then he'd touch the other scars, the ones that were not okay. The ones that came about before the new scars fixed him, or at least fixed him enough that he didn't feel the need to burn. To cut. To bleed.

 

John had made him promise to talk to him, if he felt those urges again.

Sometimes the detective did.

He still didn't always tell his friend though, if only because if he did, Sherlock would be demanding John stay with him almost every other night. It was difficult  _not_ to think in that pattern, he had known it for so long as a teenager. What had changed over the years was how Sherlock  _handled_ that urge.

 

Most of the time though it was enough just to touch the scars. Remember how far he'd worked himself to get to the point where most of the time, he was comfortable.

 

After the shooting incident, Sherlock explained to John that  _transsexual_ wasn't really the right word to describe him, at least in his opinion. A more accurate term might be  _transgender_ , or  _genderqueer_ , because Sherlock has never really felt wholly male or female. Rather, he likened himself to a muddle of puzzle pieces, all connected at odd angles and shapes, a foot in neither here nor there. A grey area in a canvas of pink and blue. Although he had learned over time that there was more blue than pink in the mix, that his skin usually only crawled when he looked back at his past.

 

This was after of course he'd shouted at John, demanded he'd leave. Screamed at him every insult to which the good doctor had merely snorted at, seating himself by the man's bedside with the firmness of a stone.

 

“You won't be chasing me off that easily, Sherlock Holmes.” He'd said, voice unwavering even as he took the man's agitated fingers in his own and forced him to lie still.

Seething, Sherlock had barely been able to refrain from biting that hand, if only because he didn't want kindness when it was obvious all of this would tumble and fall apart like sand drifting through his palms.

 

He was born Shyla Holmes, and Sherlock even then had been many, many things.

But the illusion his family had wanted, the picture of the little girl in soft lace and skirts, that had never been him.

 

As a little girl, he had been... well for lack of a better word,  _destructive._

Shyla was an angry child, often for no real reason. She'd erupt in a burst of flame at the drop of a hat, scream her heart out over foolish things, and generally act like a brat. In truth, not that different from how Sherlock was now. He could remember how he'd used to deliberately hide frogs in the pockets of his many nannies, how he used to look on with glee as they'd shriek and flail and get their stupid uniforms muddy. Mummy used to scold him for it, even as she'd tug the dark locks of her only daughter into some semblance of order in front of her elaborate mirror.

 

Sherlock never minded the hair-tugging, but he  _had_ minded what it  _lead_ to.

 

The parties.

 

 _Oh,_ how both sides of him  _loathed_ the parties. Dull.  _Dull. PAINFULLY_ dull.

Forced to sit in a high-backed chair and cross her legs, Shyla had all but  _frothed_ at the chance to cause trouble, something her older brother immediately noticed and began to take measures against. Mycroft used to tie her dress ribbons to the chair, used to sit right beside her so he could kick her shin to tell her when she had gone to far in a deduction. Used to  _glower_ at her like it was  _her fault_ that she had no interest in things that little girls enjoyed.

 

While Shyla wanted to discuss human anatomy, wanted to explore blood and bones and teeth and puzzles, she was forced to listen to her family titter on about her  _height_ her  _looks_ how beautiful her  _curls were,_ and she'd grit her teeth and stab the back of her hand underneath the table with the prongs of her fork to keep herself from revealing all she knew.

 

The first time she'd cut away those bloody curly locks, she'd laughed in manic glee.

Mummy had screamed in shock.

 

To this day, Sherlock admitted to finding a perverse pleasure in the memory.

 

His story of his childhood was spoken to John in snippets, never in linear order, and as he left the hospital, the army doctor hadn't been without questions. Namely, about his health.

 

“ _So is that why you don't eat much, I mean I know some people.... like you..."_

 

_**Transgender, John. It's not hard to say and I'm not afraid of the word.** _

 

“ _Right. Transgender people sometimes develop eating disorders because they don't identify with the body they have...”_

 

_**It was a problem in my teen years, but no. I do not have an eating disorder. Haven't really since I began to transition. Now it is merely laziness, and that the work matters more.** _

 

“ _Not more than your health, you git.”_ John had glowered up at the detective, but Sherlock couldn't help but chuckle. It was strangely endearing to him, how much John worried over his safety.

 

“ _So, um. Am I using the right.... pronouns then? I haven't been calling you something you don't identify with?”_

 

_**No, John. You've been perfect. I don't associate with either male or female completely on the so called 'spectrum' of identity, however I am definitely more masculine most of the time.** _

 

John had breathed a noticeable sigh of relief then, smiling slightly.

“ _Good. Okay, that's-that's good. I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable around me...”_

 

And Sherlock had looked the man in the eye, noticing how John hadn't started observing him differently. Hadn't asked anything invasive. Hadn't asked after anything except to make sure that the detective was okay and healthy. He felt a small smile quirking his lips, and his grin was genuine as he answered with utter honesty.

 

“John, you make me feel a lot of different conflicting emotions. Awkwardness doesn't appear to be one of them.” Then he had swept his way into the cab, leaving his friend on the kerb. John blinked, hardly able to determine what his brilliant friend had even  _meant_ by something like that.

 

But before he could analyse it too closely, Sherlock was pulling him inside the backseat. 

 

****

 

Sherlock knew his dyshporia was bad. 

At least today, it reared its head like a rather savage dog. It made his chest constrict painfully, and his lips tighten. beneath his fingertips, a storm tapped away. Light on his skin, turning harsh and violent as fingernails pushed down. 

He knew it was going to be bad.

 

And so did John Watson, when he went downstairs and realised it was almost noon on a saturday, and his detective was nowhere in sight. 


	2. The Rain And The Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John learns a bit about Sherlock's teen years. Sherlock is surprised to find John less rigid in his views than he had previously thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story doesn't have to be just three chapters if people would like more at some point. It's more of a writing exercise for me, so if there's a scenario you'd like to see or a situation, please feel free to let me know :) There's no real plot to this one, just drabble, so. Thank you so much for the lovely kudos and comments!

 

 

_"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” ~ Marilyn Monroe_

 

 

The silence in the flat was something oppressive and heavy. Like a lead blanket draped over the very furniture of _**221 B.**_ It coated everything, like slick, sluggish tar. Sherlock likened it to staring out at the world from the inside of a jar of molasses. Heavy. Silent. Waiting.

 

Under the blankets, his eyes opened warily, as if to take stock of the fact that today was not to be a good day, and that his skin was already crawling in the sort of too-tight way that it did sometimes when he felt as if he were trapped. Once upon a time, he might have soothed that itch with a seven percent solution, or perhaps by slicing through the fog that coated his mind with the edge of a blade. Now, however, he was old enough and aware enough of himself and his flatmate to know that neither was a viable option.

 

However, he did allow himself somewhat guiltily to scratch, nails raking over the skin on his arms. They left white trails, swiftly turning a dark and angry red. It was enough to distract Sherlock as he rose to his feet, wrapping his quilt firmly around his shoulders. His jaw was set even as he passed the nearby mirror hanging on his wall, eyes firmly averted as his elegant fingers reached out to search for a button-down to wear. The blanket dropped only when the satin material was in his hands, and his shoulders were immediately covered by the fabric as his fingers worked the buttons.

 

If he couldn't do anything about his suffering, the least he could do was pretend it didn't exist. It was how he functioned in his everyday life, and how he would likely continue to function as time went on.

 

If he couldn't solve it, couldn't fix the problem, then as far as he was concerned, it never existed in the first place.

 

After all, Sherlock had been told many times the harsh truth of his character. Once he was set in his ways, he was as immovable as a stone bracing against a current.

 

****

Sherlock had been eighteen when against his mother's wishes, he had stopped trying to act like Shyla Holmes. It was the eve of which he found himself following his brother's footsteps and going to Eton, despite the fact that Sherlock at the time had not cared much for the idea of higher education. Truthfully he still didn't. But there had been a rather satisfying feeling of looking at his own personal documents, seeing for once _male_ ticked off in the box, even if it was technically incorrect in his mind. Mycroft had been far less vicious about his disapproval than mummy had been, and part of that was perhaps due to the fact that he had seen his sister when she was alone, when she had thought no one was watching out for her in the vast emptiness of the Holmes house. He had seen the mask of pretend slip from her features, and the vulnerability that both Shyla and Sherlock still worked so hard to hide. Glass walls that at first glance seemed opaque but on closer inspection were as thin as candy floss. As a result, it had been no large deal to have his old name removed, _WILLIAM SHERLOCK SCOTT HOLMES_ printed in place of _WILLOW SHYLA SHERYN HOLMES._

 

Really, he hadn't even bothered to be too creative with the names, taking them from previous members of his family.

And so, Shyla, Sherlock, both of them went to school, like two old friends clasping hands side by side even when on the outside they appeared stoic and cold.

 

And the first time Sherlock was addressed as _he,_ he had to hide the curling smile on his lips and instead replace it with a flashing glare of disdain. Because after all, it would do no good to look so excited when the teacher was yelling at him for reading ahead in the textbook.

 

****

His chest had never been huge by any means, but his hips had held in them a curve that some days drove Sherlock to utter distraction. It became ritual for him in the morning to stand in his dorm room (Mycroft had managed to get him a private one) and pinch at the softness about his hips, scowling and biting back the crawling sensation that wanted to fill his mouth with ants. Sherlock would then find himself aggressively looking for other flaws in his appearance, wanting to groom them into place. He then found himself hating such weak-minded, pathetic _(Feminine)_ thoughts, and refuse to indulge them any longer, whirling away from the mirror in order to go and get dressed for the day.

 

Had anyone bothered to actually befriend the teen they would have found it common occurrence to see Sherlock stubbornly throwing away the food in his cupboards, getting rid of anything that might tempt him into eating.

He wore loose clothes, mostly. Hoodies and ragged jeans, attempting to hide the evidence that a chest binder couldn't. He ran quite a bit. When running didn't make him feel feminine. When running didn't involve too-tight clothes or sweat clinging the back of his shirt to his skin.

 

No one bothered to take note of how the already willow-framed boy became a ghost, pale and wisp-like in his classes and strangely absent. Withdrawn. 

No one asked when his voice turned raspy and sore, tender and inflamed from a night crouched over a toilet bowl, unsure of what he wanted but hating the fact that sitting there made him feel somehow better despite the pain. 

No one asked if Sherlock was okay.

Because if someone ever were to try, the detective would tear a strip out of them, his tongue still sharp despite the slow clawing deterioration of his mind. 

 

The only one who saw was Sebastian Wilkes, who approached the young man while he was reading in the solitude of the library, asking for tutoring in exchange for a bag of white powder. Sherlock's cerulean blue eyes picked out instantly what the rich young man wanted, and what he had to offer.

 

In hindsight, he shouldn't have scoffed so venomously when with a sharp-edged smile, Sebastian promised “You'll soon be begging for more.”

 

Sherlock just wanted his thoughts to stop. The things that told him he was wrong. That _everything_ was wrong. He just wanted his hands to stop quivering, wanted his voice to stop sounding so absurdly high in his own ears.

 

He just wanted to feel normal.

 

The drugs reduced him to the point that even if he was a freak, Sherlock found he couldn't much bring himself to care.

It didn't take much for Sherlock to soon become one of the many that ate out of Sebastian's smarmy palm.

 

And when Mycroft found out about the drug use and cut Sherlock's inheritance off, the young man didn't hesitate to do more than just pay the sharp-eyed young man with cash.

 

How he found himself on his knees in front of the man late at night, mouth pulling clumsily on the catch to Sebastian's fly, Sherlock would never be able to quite recall.

The only thing his brain hadn't bothered to delete about that night was the way Sebastian's hands had continued to roam despite his reluctance to let them, and how mocking the man's voice had been when his hands had ducked underneath Sherlock's belt.

 

“ _Always knew you were just playing an act. Obvious really. With that voice, you'll never fool anyone.”_

 

It had been three nights later that Sherlock had found himself all but crawling out of his skin and his mind, as much from withdrawal as something else.

In a surge of frustration, he punched the mirror in his bathroom, snarl shrieking out embarrassingly high when his knuckles had connected with the glass.

The sting, the swelling flow of the blood, was enough to ground him for a moment, leave him gasping and shockingly in the present. The scattered tendrils of his mind slowly curled inwards, drawing together to form coherent thought in order to inform his body that he was in pain. 

 

It snapped him from the chaos inside of his head. The cut was vivid. Striped.

It hurt.

_It burned._

 

But nothing, nothing ever brought him such a moment of peace as when without hesitation, Sherlock picked up a shard of glass, and pressed it under the swell of his breasts against his ribs.

The buzz in his head slowed to a stop. A whisper, a murmur that compared to its original screaming was nothing. 

Sluggishly dried.

Licking his lips, he tasted copper. Red. Adrenaline.

 

 

 

From then on, Sherlock knew exactly how to stop himself from itching outside of his own mind.

 

****

He told John about Eton slowly, half-hidden in the wealth of blankets the army doctor had wrapped about him, the words mumbled and slow. Between cases. Through countless cups of hot tea that seemed to scald the edges of his fingers. In the late of night, Sherlock would mutter and murmur his past in seemingly out of order chunks, blurting them at random points and leaving the good doctor feeling as though he was experiencing borderline whiplash.

 

Worse, John found the clinical way in which his friend would mumble the betrayal of just about everyone he had ever known filling a boiling anger in his stomach, something acidic and burning that made his fists clench and at times his breath come short. Still, his friend appeared unaffected, stating each event with such casualty that there was no way to alleviate John's secret fears: That Sherlock wouldn't try to protect himself if someone came along intending to abuse him in this way again. The man didn't understand Sherlock's sometimes week-long sulks, didn't always comprehend why the detective would look lost and wounded when he glanced in the mirror. But he knew when his friend was in pain despite how good he was at hiding it, and remembering his past was definitely causing Sherlock discomfort. A part of John wished he would stop, that they could continue as flatmate and blogger. That he didn't want to know every detail.

 

But the fact remained that John _always_ wanted to know when it came to Sherlock, and now that he _did_ know, he couldn't bear to not _continue_ knowing.

 

It caused a tension to build within the flat, and despite the fact that Sherlock's blogger _wanted_ the man to open up and finally speak, John couldn't help but feel as if he were constantly just a step away from utter outrage.

 

The breaking point came when Sherlock, words completely detached and reflective, sound from the couch at nearly midnight.

 

“Sebastian had his friends corner me once, while I was changing after running.”

 

John froze from where he had been in the process of making tea, his hands clenching on the counter in a white-knuckled grip. The thought that he should have _punched_ the shark-mouthed businessman when he had the chance crossed the soldier's mind before he came to realise the direction in which his thoughts were following. Slowly, he had to blink away the haze of red that swallowed him in a wave until he could speak through his gritted teeth.

 

“What happened?”

 

The detective's shrug was delicate, like the spreading of a sparrow's wings. His eyes were cat-like, reading John's posture carefully. The depth of his drawling voice rumbled through the living room.

“They thought it'd be a fun game, to force The Freak to undress in front of them. Luckily a prof that for some reason had taken a liking to me interrupted before it got too far.”

 

The army doctor's hands slammed themselves down on the counter before he could stop them, and the sound was sharp and the pain was enough to stop the fury that rose into the back of his throat.

John found himself at Sherlock's side without even consciously realising he had moved, kneeling so that the detective was forced to look in the army doctor's earnest blue eyes. His voice was cool and clear-cut, and Sherlock read in John's posture that the man was obviously fighting off anger. _Anger at them,_ the man realised vaguely, and his eyebrows lowered in confusion at the thought even as his blogger murmured

“Sherlock, listen to me. I know a lot of people have.... _issues_ with this topic. They... Hell even _I_ have trouble fully understanding it... but... You do know I've got your back, right? That if someone harasses you... you can tell me?”

 

It took Sherlock a moment to analyse where such a statement came from, and when he did his laugh was a harsh snort of disbelief.

“You think _Donovan_ of all people knows about the state of my genitalia? Honestly John, though your concern is appreciated and noted, even _you_ must be aware that there are quote on quote “freaky” things about me that have nothing to do with my physical body.”

 

Instead of laughing like Sherlock had privately hoped John would, his friend's frown seemed to grow, and his voice lowered in what was dangerously close to sadness even as Sherlock made room for the stubborn man on the couch. John sat next to his friend without hesitation, gaze steady whereas Sherlock's had a tendency to flick back and forth between his hands, John's face, John's neck, and away.

 

“No two people are exactly alike. That doesn't make you a freak, it just means that you don't have all the parts most guys would. And your brain is not the problem, before you say so. It just functions differently, operates faster than most people's. Your attitude is caustic, but after what you've told me, I think that's a defence.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, but John cut him off with a firm wave of his hand. His friend's eyes shone with earnest pleading.

 

“Don't. Don't pull the sociopath card. I've never believed it and never will. You're at times so human it's startling Sherlock, but you never let anyone see it. Not even me.”

 

At the man's silence, John softly elaborated, looking away. His posture was suddenly quiet, unsure. He looked at his hands and seemed to have trouble finding the words he wished to speak. Sherlock wanted him to stop, wanted him to just make tea and be _John_ , but it was obvious that the army doctor was trying to be sympathetic. Trying to understand. And though no one had ever _tried_ to understand before, Sherlock found himself wanting to see if John would try. If he would _get_ it. If he truly believed his own words. The detective was very good at picking out liars, and so far, John's entire spoke painful, awkward honesty.

 

“I didn't see it at first. I didn't... I didn't _know_ because you're so _good_ at... at being...”

 

He trailed off, and Sherlock tried to finish his sentence, guess the words that were lying left unsaid.

 

“...Male?” He murmured, just as John spoke again and said _“You.”_

 

Then the two of them looked at each other, blinking in a surprised, blank way until John's features smoothed over, and a rough laugh came from his chest.

“No, just you Sherlock. I told you, it's never been about your gender. There's a wall about you, one that would be there even if you were a girl. It's a part of you, and male or female even I can tell it would still hold its place. You're a person of walls.”

 

And John's smile shrank into something more meaningful, and he looked at Sherlock's steadily for a while, carefully gauging his reaction before he reluctantly continued

“And... It took me a while before I noticed... the walls slowly coming down in front of me... It took me a while before...”

 

The detective noticed absently that his heart was pounding in his chest, thumping loudly in his ribs like the rattle of a bird trying to escape its cage.

Before John could dare finish that sentence, Sherlock leapt to his feet, impossibly long legs carrying him away in a whirl of deductions and defence. He would never call it babbling, Sherlock Holmes did not _babble,_ but his words flowed from his mouth in a spill of verbal diarrhoea even as he turned off the kettle that started to _ding._

 

“As I told you I don't talk for days. I also don't feel entirely male all the time. Truthfully I don't identify with any one gender. Sometimes... Sometimes on more feminine days I dress in different clothes... act differently... Doesn't happen often but still....”

 

He stopped then, looking down at the boiling water he was about to pour into a cup. Sherlock's limbs seemed to quiver, and taking a deep breath, his voice was low and vulnerable as his sentence came out almost like a question.

“...Flatmates should know the worst about each other?”

 

Though John couldn't see the faint trembling in Sherlock's frame, he could hear the wavering in his voice. Clasping his hands loosely together between his knees, the ex army doctor felt a small smile curl his features. It was tinged with the sadness over the fact that Sherlock felt like he had to ask, request that he be allowed to be himself within the walls of his own home.

 

However it was also triumphant, in the sense that John could feel the layer of ice that nearly always caged the man thaw just a bit.

 

“It's all fine.”

 

****

He wore eye-liner sometimes. Painted his nails so they were the same shade of blue as the glow in his eyes. Little details that caught the eye and held it. Like shimmering scales on a canvas of otherwise pale skin. John didn't realise that Sherlock's ears had piercings until one day when he came home and a ring glinted from the lobe of the man's ear underneath the midnight sea of his curls. It shimmered as he played his violin absently, fingers weaving an effortless tune.

 

Sherlock was also somehow... softer on his girl days. Less tense, less defensive. Quieter and subdued. John would consider asking if he was okay, except that it was obvious that Sherlock wasn't hurting. No, he just seemed gentler, more prone to do things for others, though he was still wholly the detective, underneath the dose of empathy that seemed to fill him. It was like rain after Sherlock's normal lighting-personality, a muffled wash of water against the windowpane. Pastel instead of glittering, callous sharpness. 

John privately wondered to himself just why when Sherlock felt like this he seemed to hold his words like he was afraid of speaking. As if he had been trained to hold his tongue. 

To fix that, the army doctor sometimes purposefully baited him. When his friend's eyes would flash with the accepted challenge, John would inwardly cheer.

 

On some days, Sherlock quietly requested to be called _Shyla._ John would murmur it to him in greeting, placing down food or drink, subtly reminding the detective to eat. The army doctor was never sure which pronouns to use on these days, but his friend didn't seem to much mind one way or another. Rather, he'd take whichever with a small smile, as if both suited him equally at that particular point in time.

Sherlock on these days was more or less at peace with his body, although they never lasted long.

 

He was not overly feminine, but just enough to somehow soften the detective's appearance a little, make him seem not quite so cold.

John wouldn't admit to how much he liked having those kohl-lined eyes follow him about the flat at times, or how sometimes, the sheer depth of Sherlock's voice made his toes want to curl and his spine shiver.

 

If the detective noticed how his blogger suddenly took longer showers, he didn't seem to comment on it.

 

Life continued at _**221 B**_ without further hiccups. At least until the detective went back to wearing solely male attire, and resumed his crackling deductions.

The thunder and lightning returning.

 


	3. Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angsty chapter, but the next one will have the boys finally working some issues out, and hopefully trying for something a little more healthy in their dynamic :) 
> 
> Warnings are in the tags, but giving a heads up, as this one is a bit of a doozy ^.^  
> Thanks so much for reading!!

 

 

 

_Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.~ Julie Anne Peters_

 

 

Sherlock was first aware that it was happening again when he realised that the idea of John leaving sent a spike of something hot and unwanted rippling painfully through his chest.

 

Of course, this only happened when the _threat_ of John leaving was rather imminent and to the forefront of his mind. How it _got_ to the point where John was standing there, fists clenching and unclenching, eyes flashing dangerously, well Sherlock would rather privately admit to himself was likely his fault.

 

It had all started with the lack of milk in the house.

Which normally, wouldn't have set John off as much as it did. It was just the prior events that caused the doctor's already thinned patience to snap in half, crackling in impatience as he whirled on the detective and demanded in a voice that was dangerously close to a snarl

“Sherlock, where is the milk for my tea?”

 

Of course, the detective was currently attempting to peel tar from the inky blackness that was his hair, tugging futilely at the sticky substance in the living room, standing on a towel just in case. His thin frame rocked as he tugged again on a particularly sticky piece, answering distractedly even as his mind focused on the case.

 

It was a difficult one, the murderer actually a duo- twins named Henry and Albert Wright. They had been able to mimic each other with near-perfection, and as a result each had had an alibi at the time of the killings. However one of them had made a mistake, forgetting that his twin didn't part his hair in such a neat and fastidious way. As a result the detective had given chase, throwing himself after the killer without second thought. After a moment, John had followed behind.

 

Sherlock had been focussed on the case like a bloodhound on a scent ever since he had caught wind of it, and it quickly became apparent why. The victim's that Lestrade had presented them with all held one common characteristic, and it was the type that made John's gut clench and his eyes to flick over in worry at the detective, who didn't seem affected.

Except he _was._

And that in itself had been what lead to a potential disaster.

 

The ex-army doctor had seen when Sherlock had dove into an abandoned construction site, but he hadn't accounted for the fact that the detective would so willingly throw himself at the killer, diving after him even as the man tripped and managed to knock over a vat of tar and oil mix. The result had been not only messy, but chaotic.

 

John had arrived to find Sherlock rolling on the ground, completely ignoring his recently-healed leg as he twisted and attempted to pin the wriggling murderer underneath him. Henry beneath the detective's spindly form was snarling like a banshee, eyes wild even as his ginger hair blackened with slick. The two men both slipped and stuck against one another, the combination of oil and tar somehow creating a substance that was at once unpredictable as it was smelly. If Henry hadn't been armed with a knife in one hand, John might have found the event funny.

 

As it was, he had his gun out, trying without success to pinpoint a steady target even as Sherlock's coat became even darker with slick. However there was no guarantee that John would be able to hit Henry without also shooting his mad detective, and that simply wasn't an option given the fact that he had only just recently recovered from having holes shot through him.

 

Sometimes the ex army doctor truly hated the infuriating man. However his hatred only multiplied when he was suddenly wrenched backwards, the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to his temple as a growling voice sounded in his ear. John's breathing picked up as he realised.

 

_Shit._

_Forgot the other one._

 

Albert had a habit of rocking in place when he stood, and as a result John's vision creaked slightly as he saw Sherlock freeze before them, pinning Henry in place but staring at John with eyes wide as saucers. His face seemed to pale fractionally even as he stilled. For a moment, twin expressions of distress and dawning fear played out in not only John's irises, but Sherlock's.

 

The elder Wright twin spoke with the fast, staccato rhythm of a person who's mind had curdled long ago into something blackened and twisted. To Sherlock, it seemed that he could taste the aggression the man's words held as they were hurled towards him.

 

“Now, me good detective. I think you should let me brother go. Quite enough o' that, am I right? Or is your good doctor gonna find 'imself with a coupl'a new holes than what he started with?”

 

John, finding his military bearing, clenched his teeth and straightened. His voice was calm as he looked at Sherlock, refusing to let the detective's wide-eyed gaze go as he stated calmly “Sherlock, don't.”

 

The Wright twins were serial killers. John had witnessed their victims, seen how they had violated people. All but tore them to pieces. The case naturally fell close to home given the nature of their victims. All transgender or gender variant in some way. The army doctor would be the first to admit his nightmares had begun to come back since the case started, and they weren't his usual ones about Afghanistan.

 

Sherlock, all but torn to pieces in an alley. Raped or beaten, his curls sticky and matted with blood. Thick, coagulant. The detective's coat burned, like Lizzie Adam's dress had been (the third victim). John waking to find the detective gone from his bed downstairs, thinking he had merely wandered off when in fact he had been drugged unconscious and kidnapped (Erren Brown, fifth victim). The dreams had cost John more than a few cups of tea and beauty sleep, and naturally Sherlock pretended not to notice. The detective focussed on the case with the keen senses of a cat, pushing further and harder than other cases in a cold and calculating desire to avenge that he had no idea he had possessed until now.

 

The sudden, punching fear of _this body could have been your best friend_ is what had made John clench his teeth, filled with determination that the two men be put into custody. However Sherlock didn't seem to be paying him any mind. The detective's cool gaze snapped like ice, and those pale irises had flicked at the gun pressing into John's temple, away and up at Albert's face, resting on the ex-army doctor's mouth. He hadn't released his grip on Henry, but John could see how the man's fingers twitched about the twin's biceps.

 

Indecision, and Albert saw it and grinned a smile that was as wide as a crocodile's. His tone held a note of nastiness that made John's eyes close with resignation of what was to come. It was the same tone he had heard when his unit had been taken prisoner in Kandahar. The promise of violence.

 

“Need some encouragement, eh? Bet I could make the little man scream a bit, muss 'im up.”

 

As if he had found his voice from the pit of a well, Sherlock had growled a warning that sounded damn near possessive.

“Anything you do to John rest assured I will not hesitate to repeat on your brother.”

 

But the detective's gaze kept flicking minutely behind John's figure, and the army doctor took only a moment to understanding.

 

_He's stalling. That **madman** is stalling, because he knows Lestrade's coming. _

 

And then

 

_He's stalling for **my** sake. _

 

And John's unease grew, because if Sherlock had _started_ stalling, he would continue to _do_ so, and once the detective was determined, he'd use whatever he could to do so. Using whatever means possible. And Sherlock was as curled and unmoving as a pill-bug, but his eyes were dark as he purred “Not really your style is it? Torturing someone who's so... average?”

 

Immediately, John opened his mouth to say something, _anything_ to derail the conversation from the track at hand, but he found the handle of the pistol suddenly moved in lighting-like fashion, whipped over the top of his skull with a _crack_ that caused him to sink to his knees with a low hiss of pain. Through the ringing of his ears, Albert sounded intrigued.

 

“Never did like killin' an army man, honest. Good people, noble people. Prefer to clean the streets of trash, really. Me'n Henry here are pretty good guys, for serial killers. Only purge the filth.”

 

Sherlock didn't flinch, and that's what disturbed John perhaps the most. His eyes narrowed instead dangerously, and his murmur was silky as he sat up, still effortlessly restraining Henry in place. For such a slight form, Holmes had an impressive amount of strength.

“Yes, it's always about doing the right thing with you two. Cleansing London of the very person that did you wrong so long ago. Tell me, who were they? An uncle? Or perhaps an aunt with a particular fetish-”

 

This time, John expected the strike that came to him, causing him to grunt and grit his teeth. His knees were sticky with tar and oil, seeping through his jeans. Sherlock's deductions and insults cut off abruptly, and a moment later Henry grunted then moaned in pain as Sherlock twisted his arm savagely. The detective was ice as he murmured “I'd do well not to hit my flatmate again, Albert. A bullet is quick, but once you fire, I'll make sure that the last thing I do is break your brother's neck.”

 

Albert for his part sounded almost sheepish, a laugh that was callous and cruel uttering from his lips as he said ruefully “S'pose that's fair n' all. Still I wonder, Holmes. You said we must be bored of this, and that in't a lie... but the way you said it implied we're missun' something of interest.”

 

“Sherlock-”

 

John started, a silent plea for the detective to stop. To stop all of this. The mad, dangerous tight-rope walk that they seemed to be engaged in. Yet the detective wouldn't look at him, oil-streaked features, blue eyes cold and aloof and burning with a determination that made John sick to look at. It was the expression of someone who had faced this kind of harassment on a daily basis, and was bracing themselves against it so like plunging into the icy deep end of a pool they could handle it. Silhouetted like a statue of stone, Sherlock in that moment looked not unlike immovable marble.

 

Beautiful.

Yet so, so frigid and glacial.

 

The detective's voice was almost hushed, as if he were offering up a sacrifice in a prayer of reverence.

“Let him go, and I'll show you. Tell you.” A siren whispering their own demise. John struggled anew, a desperate snarl leaving his lips. And the detective's voice cracked (and that had to be on purpose, that _had_ to be because Sherlock was suddenly not Sherlock, there was something _small_ and vulnerable and deliberately _feminine_ in the way he was crouching and in how he tilted his jaw) as he admitted out loud his largest secret to a serial killer.

 

“Let John go, and you'll have something you find more interesting.”

 

What might have happened after that, John wouldn't have been able to guess.

 

For at that moment, the crack of a bullet tore through the air, and Albert Wright fell with a gunshot wound bleeding thickly in the back of his head.

 

In the end it was not Gregory Lestrade who came for back-up, but Sally Donovan. Coincidentally, she had noticed the pair had gone missing when she turned to insult Sherlock, and found only empty air.

 

****

“Where is the milk for my tea?” as it turned out was merely a code for “We need to talk.”

 

Though all Sherlock wanted to do was hide away in the many folds and passageways of his own thoughts within the sanction of his room, it appeared that the army doctor had been quietly seething much like a kettle set to boil for most of the evening. Inevitably, something had to pop.

 

It came in the form of a shattered tea mug, thrown into the sink so that porcelain shards tinkled against stainless steel and caused the detective to pause in the middle of picking out sticky black bits from his hair. He turned only to find John stalking towards him grimly, mouth set in an immovable line as he barged into the living-room, voice tight and crisp with military precision as he pointed to Sherlock's chair.

 

“Right. Sit.”

 

 

Sherlock did not move. He stood half-turned, eyes strangely owlish as he blinked at John in what could probably be described as blank apprehension. His voice was decidedly cautious as he glanced down at the soldier's hands which did not tremble, as well as his leg that did not shake. Battle-ready.

Hard and surprisingly powerful in appearance.

 

But that was John, always surprising.

 

“I would say that in my opinion, having this conversation now would be... unwise.”

 

“Tough.” Was John's rather eloquent retort, his arms crossing over stickily as he glared up from the streak of oil still circling one eyelid. He gestured to the chair, moving to his own to sit bare-footed, knees loosely apart even though his hands were clasped tightly between them. John Watson's rage was undeniable.

“We're having it.”

 

Sherlock seemed to pause and consider for a moment longer, weighing how much effort it would take to derail such a confrontation. Seeming to deem it not worth the trouble, he heaved upon a rather heavy beleaguered sigh. Slouching with his legs wider than that of an uncaring child he sat, pausing only to spread the towel at his feet onto the chair, lest he stain the material. They sat facing one another for an instant, Sherlock refusing stubbornly to meet John's gaze, the army doctor refusing to tear his eyes away from the detective's face. It stretched on painfully and awkwardly, like a string on a violin being wound too tightly, and Sherlock scowled under it and chafed like a little boy being told off for taking the last cookie in the jar. His hands twitched with it, drumming on the arm rests of his chair in unsteady rhythms, and he shifted under the steady glare of his friend like he longed to writhe away from it. The delicate turn of his mouth pursed with words that he seemed to be struggling to say.

 

John opened his mouth to speak, but his friend beat him to it. He spoke as if the very words were desperate to break from him, like wild horses bursting from a stable and running raggedly all over their original meaning. A phrase that Sherlock had once barked at John, during the Baskerville case.

 

“I don't have _friends,_ John.”

 

 

And the army doctor sucked in a breath, straightening in indignation. Yet before he could respond Sherlock pressed onwards, seeming determined to get his piece out before he was interrupted. His brow furrowed in concentration, and it looked as though he struggled to have his phrases mean what they were intended to mean deep inside the tissue of his own skull. Like sinew and bone badly broken, his explanation came in a choppy mix of insults and compliments, a veritable chop suey of deduction.

 

“I... I never had, really. Friends that is. Too boring. Too many people, too vacant. Those that weren't vacant were dull and _hateful_ towards me. Or thought I was an oddity. Or a _freak._ My own mother...” Sherlock trailed off, eyes darkening slightly before he continued with the same familiar, crisp notes of indifference “What I am saying, John, is that I don't have friends. But I have _one_ and... to lose you would be both rationally and emotionally inadvisable.”

 

The detective looked at John, trying to communicate something desperate and unspoken in his gaze. Throughout the man's monologue, John had been listening, finding the knot of anger welling in his stomach sour into something else. His throat felt dry as he hoarsely spoke, eyebrows lowering as he quietly stated “You must know... it'd be the same for me. If you had let them... if you had done what you were prepared to do... I wouldn't have been able to ever forgive you. Or myself.”

 

 

“But the chances of you living would have risen exponentially. Not to mention the amount of data that would have been collected would be more than ample to solve the case and ensure the Wright brothers never saw the light of day again.” Sherlock stated plainly, hands pressed together and tucked against the lower edge of his lips. His gaze was carefully blank “And that to me is arguably a reasonable amount of collateral damage.”

 

“Not if you sacrifice to save _me_ it isn't!” John hissed, hands clenching until he felt the crescent-tips of his nails dig into his flesh in perfect half-moons. “We're a team Sherlock, and we work together and _agree_ on a plan before we execute it! _Vatican Cameos_ , remember?!” They had agreed on it together, shortly after the Pool event, before Irene Adler and her mess (which was another story all on its own). “We agreed on a code word so we wouldn't keep on trying to sacrifice ourselves to save one another, but I can't _follow_ that plan if you disregard it come first sign of trouble!”

 

Sherlock however didn't appear to be listening. His gaze was attentive, but it was closed off. He was no longer twitching, but he had gone stock-still, and somehow that was entirely more insulting. To be so completely ignored that the man couldn't even bother to fidget in his presence. John ground his teeth together in infuriating frustration, reaching unthinkingly to clasp the man's knees as he growled, forcing the detective to look up at him with eyes widened in shock at the physical contact.

 

“ _Sherlock,_ you cannot keep _running_ from your problems! I cannot live a life constantly worried that _my_ presence is going to lead to _your_ death! Your bloody self-destructive tendencies _stop_ and they _stop now_ or so help me-!”

 

But Sherlock suddenly rose, sinuous and graceful as a snake as he shoved John out of his personal space, eyes blazing as cold fury crackled. He bared his teeth in a snarl, shout ringing throughout the flat as he roared

“And just _what_ would you know about destructive tendencies?! An invalided army doctor, sent home from a war that he should be happy to be out of yet misses, a kicked _dog_ with no place to go and sitting in a bedsit! Contemplating eating his own gun just because he feels like he _doesn't belong!_ ”

 

The detective sneered, eyes flashing cruelly as he towered over John. At his full height Sherlock was terrifying, menacing, and John had a dizzying moment of wondering what Sherlock must have been like as a woman, nearly five foot nine and made of thunder.

 

_Terrifying._

_He would have been terrifying, even back then when like this._

 

“How can you possibly think that you don't belong, when no one wants to _hunt_ you for what you are? When no one has _spat_ on you because of your choice of clothes, when no one has _broken your bones_ because your own skin makes you want to _scream?!_ HOW CAN YOU THINK SO LITTLE OF YOURSELF THAT YOU THINK YOU ARE NOT WORTH WHAT LITTLE PROTECTION I CAN GIVE TO MAKE UP FOR WHAT I _AM?!_ ”

 

“HOW CAN _YOU_ THINK I NEED YOUR FUCKING PROTECTION SHERLOCK HOLMES WHEN YOU CAN BARELY PROTECT _YOURSELF?”_

 

And oh.

That hadn't meant to come out.

That hadn't meant to be said _at all_ , and both men could tell immediately, because Sherlock's jaw snapped shut so quickly that it was like the tightening of a loose bolt. His features twisted into disgust with himself before melting into a chilling likeness of a porcelain doll. Then man's eyes flashed with something akin to shame, and a dull flush coloured his cheeks. John however didn't get to see it, as already the detective was moving, bolting towards his bedroom like his heels were bursting into flame. With it, he could feel the tentative equilibrium, the delicate balance between them of words unsaid and long-stretched silences shatter like shards of glass.

 

John gathered himself in just enough time to lunge, making a break for the man's bedroom, only to have the door slammed in his face a second too soon. The ex army doctor pounded on Sherlock's bedroom door, voice angry and cracking and dampened with _something_ that made the back of the man's throat burn with acid as much as the plea that crossed his lips.

 

“Sherlock! Sherlock _please! Open the door!_ Sherlock! I'm sorry!”

 

But there was no answer, and John found himself after nearly an hour sliding down the surface of the door to curl at the foot of it, tilting his pounding head back to rest against the wooden surface and closing his eyes in pain. His chest squeezed tightly like a noose, like the tar in his jumper had seeped somehow through his skin, attempting to drown the organ.

Trying to strangle him.

 

And if at almost midnight he heard the near-soundless sobs of a fully grown detective trying his hardest to cry without being heard, well then John felt all the more like a monster. He pressed his burning eyes to the knitted texture of his jumper, feeling as though he didn't even deserve to cry.

 


	4. Unnecessary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the angst is (mostly) resolved in this chapter ^.^'' still a bit more to go but things aren't quite as tense.  
> We also get some of Greg's wisdom and advice! yay protective!Lestrade! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :3
> 
> triggers for eating-disorder type behaviors...

 

 

_To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~E.E. Cummings_

 

 

Sherlock did not leave his room for four days.

 

During those four days, John had tried everything he could think of to apologise. Because God knows Sherlock wouldn't ever for the hurts he had lashed out upon the army doctor, and because really his insults hadn't cut. Not like John's had. Not like...

 

John pleaded. He begged and eventually yelled, but the door remained locked tightly. In fact the only sign that Sherlock was within his room at all was the fact that occasionally the detective would scoff at the army doctor's attempts, a harsh and bitter sound that did not actually sound amused.

 

After the apologies, came more anger. Anger at the fact that every meal that John left at Sherlock's door remained barely touched. Anger at the fact that the things that were touched were merely picked at, as if the detective hadn't actually put anything in his mouth. Anger that at the one glimpse John had caught of Sherlock (he had hidden by the stairs after he'd set down a tray of soup and a sandwich) the detective's eyes had been red-rimmed and sleepless. Finally, anger at the fact that four days had passed, and that Sherlock hadn't answered a single text from anyone. Not from John (for he had tried, hoping that maybe if the detective hadn't been willing to type he could text) not from Lestrade. All cases slowed to a dead halt, and with no answer to give, John had squared himself into making some kind of bullshit excuse to the DI for Sherlock's absence, only to find out that he didn't have to in the first place.

 

Lestrade took one look at John's haggard face at the pub meet they'd agreed upon, and something cold dropped into the Detective Inspector's brown eyes. Without preamble, John demanded “Do you know?”

 

The silver-haired man sighed, ordering himself something stronger to drink than he had first planned. If he had known this was how the conversation was going to begin, he would have suggested they stay away from a pub, just so that he could avoid getting sloshed. As it was, it looked like he was going to have no choice. Rubbing at his eyes, Greg seated himself at the booth across from John, gruff voice curling in the beginnings of a rather unhappy smirk.

“You mean do I know that our detective is a colossal berk who enjoys flouncing about naked far too much for someone who doesn't wish for other people to know the status of his bits? Yeah, I know Sherlock's... Sherlock.”

 

It was such a simple statement, but John blinked at it, privately surprised that Greg had managed to sum it up so accurately. He leaned back in his seat, turning the words over in his head as he slowly spun the pint in his hands around, the amber contents quietly sloshing, like the agitated slosh of his thoughts. The DI looked at him with something akin to amusement, brown eyes warm as he murmured “What? You didn't think I'd know? Bear in mind I've known Sherlock for a long time, back to the drug years. There were quite a few times when I had a certain detective crashing on my couch, though not wholly voluntarily on my part. Before the bloody surgery he used to leave his binders all over the place, and don't even get me started on where I found one of his packers when I'd reorganised his sock index once.”

 

The DI shuddered, shaking his head ruefully before sipping his drink. His eyes were dark though as he flicked a glance to John, and there was a quiet hum of protectiveness in the man's posture as he began. “Listen, John. You're my mate, but if you called me here because you have a problem with it...”

 

The unspoken threat lay between them for only a moment, until John sputtered denial and set his drink down, slamming his hands down on the table, perhaps a bit more harshly than was strictly necessary.

“No! No, Greg. It's not that. I've known for... _God_ for near a few months now. Believe me, I could care less how Sherlock... how he identifies.”

 

Lestrade's features relaxed, a small smile coming to his face as he leaned back into the seat. He passed a hand over his face, scratching at the day-old stubble that had managed to accumulate under his chin (there had been a case, barely any time to sleep let alone shave). His voice thawed into something that was a bit warmer as ruefully he shot a look of apology at John even while rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry... it's instinct. The kid hasn't always had... such good companions around him.”

The ex army doctor nodded in understanding, mind flicking to Sherlock's brief but sour mention of his old uni years. His hands drummed on the solid surface of the table for a moment absently before the DI seemed to realise that John was still not at ease. His brows furrowed in concern, and Lestrade peered at John carefully, scanning him up and down before bracing himself as if for impact. His question was filled with a heavy sort of dread.

 

“Is it... Is he back on the drugs again?”

 

John sighed, shaking his head, but his expression did little to put Greg at ease. The doctor cupped his head in one hand and swirled his drink, voice low as he confessed miserably “I've fucked something up. It's... It's my fault I think. This time.”

 

and haltingly, John explained the row he'd had, the cold silence after, and the worrying absence of his flatmate even when he was only a room away. He spoke of the concern he felt worming away in his gut, and his anger at both Sherlock and himself. He explained until his mouth felt dry and he went to drink from his pint, only to discover that he'd managed to drain it over the course of the conversation. During it all Greg remained quiet, eyes glinting in understanding and growing distress the more John opened up. When the army doctor finished, the DI all but groaned, rubbing at his face as he struggled to find a solution to the tangled mess the helpless man before him seemed to have gotten himself into.

 

“ _Christ,_ he's not going to forgive that easily. No wonder he's been ignoring my texts, the stubborn git's probably unwilling to go down and see the crime scenes if it means having to face you.”

 

John winced at the accusation in that sentence, and Greg hastened to explain. “Not like that. It's just... I've known Sherlock for years, and he _hates_ it when someone points out any of his flaws. He likes to pretend he's some kind of machine most days, and when someone upsets the equilibrium... he has a tendency to panic. Likely he's not angry at you any more, just... embarrassed.”

 

“Embarrassed?” John echoed sceptically, and the DI nodded at him in affirmation even as Greg elaborated.

“Monumentally so. You _know_ the bastard doesn't ever admit to making mistakes, not for anyone. And most of the time, he doesn't bother being self-sacrificing, it's not in his nature. So, trying to do a good thing and then getting scolded for it? He likely thinks you're fed up with him.”

 

“ _I am!”_ John emphasized, old annoying flaring up as he rolled his eyes “I'm fed up with him believing I'm helpless, and fed up with him constantly believing he can just sacrifice his own safety to protect _mine._ What was he even _doing_ on this case? If you _knew-_ ”

 

“I _tried_ to keep him from it John, but you didn't see his expression!” Greg snapped, not willing to take the brunt of his friend's misplaced protectiveness “He was _driven_ to catch them, more so because he could actually _relate_ to the victims. I threatened to get his brother involved if he didn't back down and in return he threatened to eviscerate me with his violin at all hours of the night. Do you even _understand_ how cheesed off my wife would be if that happened _again?_ ”

 

John didn't use the low-blow he was at first tempted to spit at Greg, that his wife hadn't been _home_ in about a month and that it didn't matter if Sherlock's safety was in _jeopardy._ Instead he forced himself to take a deep breath, cooling his anger down into a simmer before he tapped the surface of his glass thoughtfully, blue eyes shadowed in apprehension.

 

“M'sorry, mate. I'm just... He's been cold before but this is approaching glacial and I'm worried... he's only come out of his room presumably when I'm not about. If he doesn't start eating soon or at the very least _showering_ I'm considering calling in the artillery.”

 

“Mycroft?”

 

John nodded, to which Greg pursed his lips and traced his still half-finished pint with one finger in contemplation. When he spoke, his voice was careful.

“That... might either be a good idea or make things extraordinarily worse. It's not my place to say, but Sherlock's family... something happened when he came out to them. He doesn't speak to his Mum I know, and his Dad's never mentioned. The one time I tried to broach the topic he evaded and twisted out of the conversation like a bloody eel. Mycroft... I don't know how accepting he is of Sherlock. I know he cares to an extent... but from what I've seen of their relationship, I believe he once wasn't always so understanding.”

 

The DI downed the rest of his drink with a swallow before continuing.

“Either way, I care about Sherlock. He's kind of like the kid brother I never wanted. When he first came to me... God he was broken. Not just because of the drugs, there were dogs haunting that kid that I couldn't even begin to understand... and he always insisted on fighting alone. He'd only accept help when it was forced upon him, and that's never really changed, 'till you came along at least." Greg looked sad then, glancing down and away before he continued "Used to have to drag him to restaurants and demand he'd eat, or pull him over to my flat so he'd rest for a few hours. It was always the lone wolf routine, and he never quite thanked me... but he's changed. Partly because of rehab, and partly because of the people around him.  And you're good for him, John. Don't ever doubt that. He needs to know that not everyone is going to treat him like a... well like a _freak_.”

 

Both frowned at the word, and John's hands tightened into fists against his elbows on the table. He was reminded again of all Sherlock had endured as a youth, as well as all the things the man had likely not bothered to say, deeming unimportant. His chest ached in the cavern where his heart should be.

 

“But I made a mistake.” The army doctor muttered hollowly, and Greg offered him a small, sad smile.

 

“Sure, but you're trying to fix it. Sherlock's not used to that. For someone so brilliant, he chafes with change. Give him time, he'll come around.” Lestrade's hand clapped smartly on John's shoulder as he rose to pay.

“Once he believes that there's no ulterior motive behind your apology, you might even get a Sherlockian version of an “I'm sorry” yourself.”

 

And John tried to find faith in this, even as he pictured the uneaten meals sitting outside. The sleepless nights where he sometimes thought he could hear crying. He tried to find hope in the idea that Sherlock would forgive him, because the alternative meant living with a ghost. And somehow, John was sure that the idea of rooming with a phantom of a detective would be more painful than bracing gunfire back in the desert, where he had been uncertain one day to the next whether or not he'd live.

 

 

****

 

It was a hollow feeling, to starve when there was food only a short distance away. Sherlock considered the sensation as he lay on top of his bed, comforter scrunched into a nest-like ball to his left from when he had needed its weight pressed all around him. Now it was too stifling, and he found his shirt rucked up past his navel and the sweatpants he had donned for the day hanging loosely from his hips. He didn't look down, instead his fingers mapping out the edges of his clothing, toying with the waistband's cord. Arbitrarily he felt nausea swimming low in his throat, as if his stomach believed he could vomit out the sensation of hunger if it only tried hard enough.

 

He rolled over, curling into a condensed ball. With his knees tucked against his chin, the ache of it lessened somewhat. Still, it did not go entirely away. Sherlock was glad for that. Liked when things hurt... at least when he felt like he did now.

 

The word for it came to him, insidious and curling in his ear like a hissing snake.

_Worthless._

 

It spat, and with it came memories of John's anger, how the smaller man's hands had clenched in fury. How high the doctor's voice cracked when he was worried, standing outside of Sherlock's door, begging.

 

_Pathetic._

 

With a snarl he dispelled the thought, refusing it continuation into something more even as he sat up, swaying slightly as the blood rushed quickly back into his extremities. His head pounded weakly, but he ignored its pleas even as he forced himself onto his feet, pacing in an agitated circle on the smooth hardwood floor. It was a disjointed oval, made crooked by as much his own weakness as his irritation.

 

He had made a mistake.

 

All a mistake.

And there was nothing, nothing at all to be done about it, because the only solution to the mistake would be to stop protecting John.

 

And that was _not_ going to happen.

 

Which meant that inevitably, John would leave. So Sherlock had naturally prepared himself for such an eventuality, pretending he lived alone. That the soft pleas sometimes at his door were nothing more than creaking pipes. That his own mind was playing tricks on him, running through the halls of his Mind-Palace and forcing him to chase after a spectre like a child playing a twisted game of tag.

 

Except when he left his room, the trays of food still sat waiting for him, and when he crept soundlessly in the night, he could sometimes see that John had fallen asleep trying to catch a glimpse of him on the couch. And always, John looked as sleepless as Sherlock felt, even when in the midst of a dream. It was the fourth evening when John returned home, drunk and not even hesitating to fall asleep on the couch, that Sherlock realised.

 

He wasn't going to leave. Couldn't bring himself to, either out of a misplaced sense of duty or trust. Probably duty, if the flesh of their earlier argument implied anything. The detective had then found himself all night staring at the ceiling of his bedroom.

 

Because if John wouldn't leave, then he'd have to.

 

Sherlock couldn't afford to have someone feel like they needed to protect him from shattering, like he was made of glass. He already had someone who did that, and his and Mycroft's relationship... Well it might as well have been held together by cobweb and willpower. The detective refused to turn something like John Watson's presence into a chore. He refused to become someone's job.

 

Better to cut off the limb, cauterize it completely, then let it fester and rot and warp.

 

Strangely, the thought did not lessen the dull ache in his chest. Nor the faint grumbling in his abdomen as he spun around, flopping back on the bed and brooding amongst the sheets.

At least John didn't make a big deal of it. For once, the detective was glad that someone didn't have the willingness to start anything dramatic and unnecessary. 

****

John woke to the sound of a mournful violin being played in the dark.

 

It had been so long since he had heard it, for a moment the army doctor wondered if he was hallucinating. He coughed and straightened from where he had fallen asleep in his chair, peering into the grey light of early morning. Sure enough though, his eyes confirmed what his ears already knew.

 

Standing in his usual pristine suit, Sherlock swayed gently by the window of Baker Street, his chin tilted to cup his violin as with deft fingers he drew his bow across strings pressed gently to their neck. The sound that came from the violin was low and sweet and sad, aching, and John felt his throat tighten from it even as he looked the detective over frantically, trying to gauge if he was okay. The detective looked thinner, and more tired than John had ever seen before. As if he hadn't slept once over the course of the four nights he had disappeared into his room. Dark purple smudges marked the underside of Sherlock's cerulean gaze, and the man seemed determined not to look at his companion as he continued to play the piece to its completion. It was only when the song finished with a mournful key that John even realised what surrounded the detective's feet. Packed bags greeted him, and the army doctor felt his heart leap into his throat as without further hesitation he rose, blocking the doorway with the physical manifestation of his body.

 

“No.”

 

He said it firmly, and watched as Sherlock's music came to a juddering halt, his jaw tightening minutely. However the detective's voice was mocking as he said “Funny. I don't recall you becoming my mother.”

 

Sherlock calmly packed the instrument back into its case, for all the world appearing confident that John would move, if prodded correctly. His flatmate however noticed how his hands trembled minutely, and how once he was leaning over the detective blinked furiously, as if trying to clear dark spots from his vision. Dehydrated, most likely. On top of hunger. John found his resolve if possible harden more.

 

“I'm not letting you leave until you eat something.”

 

The lanky man's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he enunciated his words as if he were speaking to a child.

“Not. Hungry.”

 

But treacherously, his stomach growled. John bit his lip, scowl darkening as he reiterated.

“You're eating. Then we're talking.”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Sherlock-”_

 

“Why?!” The detective snapped, as as he did John was surprised to hear a crack in the man's voice, delicate and fragile like a shard of pottery “Why do you _insist_ on believing I can't care for myself?”

 

John's first instinct was to snap back, but Lestrade's words rang in his ears. He found his hands rising in what he hoped was a placating gesture, voice lowering calmly as he stated “I'll let you leave if you want. After you've eaten. It's not that I don't believe you can't care for yourself, it's... I worry.”

 

And Sherlock blinked at him, seemingly at a loss for words for once as he floundered, mouth opening before shutting with a distinctive _click_ of annoyance. The detective's eyes flashed, wildly darting about as if looking for some kind of escape, but finding none they inevitably landed on John's face, his shoulders and how they were set in determination.

 

He slumped, dark curls being combed through greasily with one spider-like hand. Suddenly, all of the fight had left him. Sherlock's voice was hollow as he acquiesced. Too tired to fight. At least while John was looking at him in that way.

 

_Worthless._

His thoughts whispered, and they only snarled louder the longer the army doctor looked at him, gaze filled with something pained as gently he came forward, pulling Sherlock's now responsive form to the kitchen.

 

The smell of potatoes frying in a pan made Sherlock at once ravenous and disgusted with himself.

 

When they were both finally sitting, the detective's luggage lay forgotten in the living-room. Yet Sherlock felt as if he were carrying it already on his shoulders as he picked at his food, wanting to eat and yet unable to quite bring a bite to his mouth. The scrape of his cutlery running over the bottom of the plate was a constant, soothing pattern.

 

John didn't complain. Merely sat patiently with his own food untouched until the detective, realising what such silence implied, managed to bring his meal to his lips. A moment later, the army doctor did the same with his own food.

 

 

****

 

When Shyla had been twelve, she'd believed her older brother could do anything. Be it spare her from another one of Mummy's horrid dress-up parties or simply teach her about the biological functions of the bees outside their yard, the little girl held firm faith that if she was frightened or in trouble, then Big Brother Myc would come through in the end to help her.

 

When she was twelve, Shyla had been scared. Very, very scared. For staining her pyjama pants one morning had been the very horror she had dreaded since she had looked up the female anatomy, and it showed to her the final proof that she couldn't escape from or deny:

 

Her body was slowly betraying her.

 

That morning, she calmly locked the bathroom door to her room, curled up in the bathtub, and proceeded to cry until shaking sobs shook through her and she hyperventilated hard enough to verge on passing out. When she had been done, she'd turned on the tap to freezing, letting cold water hit the bareness of her toes and soak her nightgown, trying to drown out the clawing beat of her own panic with the thundering of water striking porcelain.

 

What seemed like hours later, she crawled out of the tub to find the phone. Towel drying her hair, face blotchy and red, Shyla waited patiently for the headmaster of her brother's school to answer, to let her speak to Mycroft. But when Myc responded, his voice held the heavy tone of a stranger.

 

“What is it, Shyla?”

 

“M-Myc..” And the treacherous tears that the young girl hated so much started again to rise hotly to the back of her eyelids, and God she _hated_ this and Mummy _musn't_ find out. Not if things were to carry on and-

 

Shyla sobbed a string of barely intelligible sentences through the phone line, none of which to her seemed to make sense. However her older brother seemed to comprehend at least a smidgen of what was said, as he responded with a sharp sigh of exasperation.

 

“You pulled me away from class because you're upset that a _natural_ function of your body is working? Honestly sister mine, just go find Mummy and tell her. Or explain to a maid at least.”

 

“ _It's **not** natural!”_ Shyla had found herself all but shrieking at the phone, and she couldn't keep her voice down and someone was bound to _hear_ but Myc had to know, had to _understand_ because he _always_ understood. _Always._

 

“It's not natural and I hate it! I hate it and I hate all of this and I hate th-the p-parties and the dresses and Myc _please._ ” She begged, not knowing what it was she was begging for. She felt herself dissolve back into soft, hiccuping shudders, awaiting for her brother to do something, to _fix things._

 

After a moment, Mycroft let out a sigh through his teeth. His voice was cold. Fed up. Frighteningly like their Mother's. Shyla felt her heart plummet into her gut.

“ _Enough,_ Shyla. These dramatics need to _stop._ I've had it, and Mummy has had it as well. It is time you _grew up. There are bigger things to worry about than you and this is completely unnecessary._ This whining is _beneath_ you frankly and _pathetic-_ ”

 

And he might have continued, if the younger Holmes hadn't screeched at him, throwing the phone so it smashed into the wall, the receiver breaking into pieces.

 

 

The maid found Shyla hours later, curled up back in her bathtub. The girl's comforter was wrapped about her tightly, seemingly the only thing holding her in place. In Shyla's hands was the family photo that normally sat bolstered against her wall. The darkly-curled girl was slowly cutting it into strips, watching the photograph sink into the water around her. To the maid's distressed inquiry, Shyla merely intoned a dull and distant “Experiment.”

 

 


	5. Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I'm only updating my oneshot type things guys ^.^'' school doesn't really allow me to do much else. once summer comes updates shall increase.
> 
> Until then, enjoy!
> 
> triggers for eating disorders, self harm and past non-con issues. ^_^ please take care of yourself.

 

 

_“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ~ Jane Eyre_

 

 

“I need to know. Aside from the... from the food, have you... that is...”

 

John found that the words he wanted to say were much harder to verbalise when the detective was looking directly at him, especially since he had only gotten the chance to practice them in the mirror a dozen times. Still he struggled, determined not to just allow the detective to slink off again (to do god knows _what_ to himself) before he could at very least assess the mental state of his friend.

 

Sherlock for his part stared at his empty plate, sitting at the kitchen table as if there was at least a hundred places he'd rather be, eyes downcast and mouth pinched tightly. One hand still held his fork delicately, and it traced the outer ring of the dish with precise, near-silent care. Each circling dragged on slowly, the poignant scrape of ceramic against steel sounding like the faint hush of a breath in the near-silence. Still John hesitated, unwilling to break the quiet, lest it give way to shouting.

Arguing.

 

His jaw clenched.

 

The obsessive way in which Sherlock traced the plate sent flutterings of unease through John's throat. It seemed the man before him was little more than bones and skin, but it was clear by the way the detective glared down at the dish in offended indignation that he didn't think as much. No, if Sherlock were allowed to slip away like this, then John would find himself awake much of the night, listening for the sound of someone moving, lest they make their way to the bathroom and-

 

John shook away the thought, clenching his hands on the table. There was no need to underestimate Sherlock. No need to think so little of his self-control. That was half the problem lately! Sherlock felt as if he had...

 

As if he had no control.

 

And _oh,_ it clicked finally for John, making his distress and inner fear soften into something slow and painful. Sherlock constantly felt as if he was only a breath away from losing complete control of his life, his body, his very home. For someone _like_ the detective, that was a scary idea. To completely have one's life ripped away, to play to another's puppeteer ways. John was fairly sure that came from someone else's influence on the man's life, and he'd hazard a guess at his parent's playing at least a part of it. Mycroft even more so. The question was though, _could_ Sherlock be deemed safe enough to trust?

 

The answer, John was rather frustrated to discover, screamed out a resounding and absolute _no._

 

Not when the detective looked ill just from eating fried potatoes and was scratching the inside of his wrists as if he might like to shoot up, or worse, cut.

 

_Damn it, you're a bloody doctor! Do **something**! Distract him at least!_

 

 

Finally, John's damn mouth opened, but before he spoke, Sherlock overran him. The man's voice was calculating, soft and resigned. It sounded like he was prepared for battle. Cold and hardened by a false bravado and dignity the man simply couldn't hope to possess. Not when his eyes looked so anxious, not when he trembled in his seat like a child awaiting to be struck.

 

“I haven't. I haven't used and I haven't cut. Or burned. Or injured myself deliberately in any way aside from the meals...You can _check_ if you want-just please. Believe me. I wouldn't... not without at least leaving first. I'd never... not while you were in the flat.”

 

And Sherlock's throat bobbed in a nervous swallow, his face uncharacteristically _young_ as he looked up at John, pleading at him to quietly accept his candour, to not break what little trust still held between them, however tenuous. John, to his credit believed him. He could always read Sherlock's honesty, at least when it came to issues concerning the detective himself. Little things, John might not notice (the drugging of certain mugs of coffee for instance) but for serious things, things that were life or death... John had learned to read people, and in that moment, he saw honesty swimming in those pale irises.

 

Sherlock slumped visibly in relief when his flatmate took his word with a smile.

“No, that's all right. I trust you. I will _always_ trust you Sherlock. Especially when it comes to things of... this nature.”

 

But then John's smile faded, and his eyes grew serious as he continued with only a small pause, doctor mode kicking in.

“But the not eating... Sherlock that's not only a health hazard it's frightening, and also a form of self-harm. And... it needs to stop.”

 

The detective said nothing, gaze once again sliding down and away. Avoidance, classic response. The man's lower lip was trapped between his teeth, and his spider-like hands clenched on the surface of the table. John tried not to notice how the veins stood out prominently, blue-black under pale white. When Sherlock spoke, his voice was slow like molasses, and barely reached a whisper.

 

“I... don't know if I _can._ It... it helps... when everything else is closed to me, every other coping method... it's the _one_ thing that I haven't ever had to give up, since normally no one is _around..._ ” His voice trailed off then, cracking slightly, and John's eyes turned thunderous and stormy. He could read the words left unspoken, unsaid. _No one's ever cared enough. Just because it isn't a regular thing, people have just let it go. Hoped he wouldn't get killed in the process so long as he stopped doing the other, more obvious things._

 

The army doctor's voice was soft. Trying to rein in his temper and silent fury.

“You've implied that there's reasons for this behaviour before... things that set it off... Maybe...” _You could explain why you went back to this instead of facing me and the problems we're having?_ John didn't need to finish his thoughts, the detective seemed to understand. His features shuttered, and he set down his fork to drum his fingers nervously on his thighs. His voice was tight.

 

“You won't like the reasons.”

“Chances are, no. But tell me anyway.” John remained stoic and staunch, unwilling to budge. Sherlock remained quiet a moment longer, but when he finally spoke, he looked up at John, silently daring him to look away as he stated

 

“It's punishment.” And he said it so calmly, something hot twisted in John's stomach like a spear. He frowned, voice trembling slightly as he confirmed his fears.

 

“...Punishment? For what?”

 

The detective continued to pin him with his gaze, like a knife thrown expertly to stab through the heart of a butterfly. He did not move, but he seemed to much smaller. So much more compact.

 

“It's painful. It hurts like nothing else quite can. So it's punishment. For when I disappoint people. For when I'm...” And the detective trailed off, looking at his hands.

 

Quietly, his own thoughts finished for him. Piling up with the knowledge that John would most likely leave now. Once he realised how broken, how backwards his thinking was. _Worthless. Useless. Disgustingly female when I don't want to be. Emotional. Stupid. A dumb little-_

 

Sherlock's thoughts were cut off when the sharp scrape of his friend's chair alerted him to John moving. Before the detective could move, or even properly think, the army doctor was there. Pulling him in an embrace. Closing him in a shield that seemed to be made of warmth and safety and _John_ and _Sherlock didn't deserve this_ and still he leaned forward, greedily accepting the touch. Craving it. He hated the way his skin pressed against John's. Loved it more than anything else. The strange scent that was the army doctor- a unique and interesting blend of gun-oil, tea and shampoo- filled the detective's lungs. He inhaled for more, paralysed. Yet desperate to move away. For John was saying this, murmuring things, and his words sent a sharp pain of something _horrible_ through Sherlock, threatening his cold resolve that screamed at him to leave, to get up and _never return._

 

“All those thoughts? The ones that you're having right now? Yeah, they're wrong. _So wrong_ Sherlock. Just... Do you not see how amazing you actually _are?_ Sherlock... when I first came to this flat... I didn't have my gun with me for protection.”

 

Beneath him, John could feel the detective freeze, something tremble through him that made Sherlock grip John fractionally tighter, his breath come faster. Still the army doctor pushed on, determined now that he had started not to stop.

 

“And then you came along... and nothing was _boring._ Not even a _little._ Suddenly there were explosions and body parts in my kitchen and games of _Cluedo_ ending in extreme violence.” John huffed a small laugh, even as unshed tears filled his eyes. Still he held Sherlock to his chest like a child, hands running through those dark curls gently. Tenderly.

“I have a _purpose_ again, Sherlock. And maybe that's not healthy, but it's _fixed_ me and I'm _needed_ , and not just by you. By people around you. You _gravitate_ around good people, Sherlock. Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Molly, even. And they all _shine_ at their _best_ around you, even though you don't see it.”

 

Sherlock still didn't look at him, but John could feel by the way he clutched at his jumper that he was listening, could feel the man's disbelief like it was a cloud surrounding him. John wondered if his flatmate had ever believed the rare words of praise he'd received, if he'd even _allowed_ himself to do so. The thought made him want to continue, to force Sherlock to hear him, even though part of him also shouted at him to stop, lest he say something he couldn't take back.

 

“You are perfect and _loved_ and yes, you have flaws. But they have _nothing_ to do with not being good enough, and _nothing_ to do with being undeserving. You're _allowed_ to feel emotional pain, and you're _allowed_ to hate things. But you are _not_ allowed to hurt _yourself,_ and that's because when you do so, you're hurting everyone around you, quite literally.” John then cupped Sherlock's face in his hands, and was surprised to see the detective's mouth open in shock. With his curls mussed and his eyes wide, Sherlock looked years younger, blown into silence be the vehemence in which John spoke, emotions laid on on the table in a rush that was uncharacteristic of their usual dynamic. The army doctor's voice cracked slightly as he looked down at his flatmate, thumbs tracing the sharp plane of his cheekbones, wanting but not reaching out and closing the distance between them.

 

“Sherlock Holmes. You are the bravest, and the wisest man I have _ever_ known. My best friend, and I...” John blinked, the words coming over him with a warmth he had never known. He finished simply, his honesty spearing the detective through the chest, taking his breath away and leaving him feeling as though he were floating in space. Completely adrift.

 

“I love you.”

 

And Sherlock Holmes looked at him, brows furrowed in such deep confusion that it looked as if something had broken within his precious Mind-Palace. He stared at John, a rabbit caught between cross-hairs. Waiting for the “but”. Waiting for the terms and conditions. The catch. But no conditions came, and soon the detective wondered impossibly if they would ever come.

 

It was too good to be true.

 

Which was why in the end Sherlock suddenly surged forward, crushing John's lips against his own. Hoping that the sudden attack might break through the illusion, smash it to pieces.

 

To his surprise, it only solidified. His friend's hands after a moment wrapping about his waist. And then Sherlock realised, the seam of John's lips pressed against his own making his heart pound wildly in his throat.

 

That perhaps, just... _perhaps..._ There was really no catch at all.

 

****

The first time Sherlock actually had issues with food, it hadn't turned into an actual problem. No, that hadn't happened until his late teens really. But he could still remember not being quite comfortable around it, yet not for any real reason of his own. No, Shyla had not hated food.

 

It was the way in which others looked at her, when she ate. That, was what she hated.

 

Or rather, her mother.

 

She'd hiss at her as she'd help herself to a second slice of cake, complete with horrible blue frosting and white icing flowers. Her manicured hands had been rough as she'd cleaned the eight-year old's face, scowling the way she did when Shyla did something not-good or scandalous. Later in the car, she'd ask innocently “Did you eat well, dear?” And when Shyla replied with an enthusiastic “Yes!” She'd mutter “Sure looked like it.” Under her breath, hands tightening about the steering wheel.

 

It took a few more years still until Shyla realised the implications of such a statement. When she did, her mother had gotten much better at hiding how she felt about food. Instead, she picked at Shyla's appearance, how her gangly daughter had once been slightly chubby over the stretch of one growth spurt. She'd laugh even as she lightly pointed out Shyla's softer tummy, and Shyla, automatically trying to emulate her, would do the same to Mycroft.

 

It was the one habit that Sherlock had never been quite able to break, even though now he knew how cruel it was. Even though Mycroft had never, _never_ felt the urge to do anything as extreme as Sherlock had taken to doing. It was automatic, one last tie to Mummy Holmes that the detective hated as much as fell back on.

 

And maybe it wasn't the _source_ of his eating issues, but it certainly didn't _help._ Not even slightly.

 

Sherlock didn't think himself fat. That was too simple an issue. No. He merely didn't like where the fat on his body _sat,_ where it was distributed. He did not like how despite his hormones and despite the years, he still had a curve to his thighs and hips if he ate too much. If he went too long without a case. He did not _like_ how if he stayed outside too long he freckled-making his cheeks appear rounder and his eyes _softer_ and _dammit-_

Sherlock did not like a lot of things.

But it wasn't that he had _body issues._ Not in the typical sense. And that, in the end, is what made it so hard to _vocalise._ Because a therapist or a shrink _might_ have been able to help him if it _were_ just that. But it _wasn't._

 

It was merely that he knew there was a price for everything, and this, this was his price. For his body. His freedom.

 

And he'd push through it. Suffer through the ache, persevere through every longing craving for even just a bite of food, if it meant in the end he didn't hate himself quite so much in the mirror. It was not good, and he knew that. This, this could _kill_ him, far more easily than even cocaine.

 

That was why he'd stopped as he'd gotten older. Forced those thoughts away. Crushed them and willed them to wilt and die.

 

But sometimes... sometimes he remembered that blue icing, and the sweetness on his tongue. He'd remember the way Mycroft's face had twisted in genuine hurt, the first time he'd teased him. He'd remember 1 A.M nights in uni, curled about a porcelain toilet bowl.

 

And sometimes, however brief, that itch returned. Lingering just under his skin.

Muted.

But never completely erased.

 

But those were bad days, and surely, even the great Sherlock Holmes was entitled to have at least a few. Surely it wasn't weak, to every once in a while let his thoughts take over.

 

John didn't think he was weak for it.

 

But... John _was_ hurting over it.

 

And... Sherlock couldn't allow John to hurt.

The next morning, the army doctor found toast crumbs, all over the kitchen counter. In the living room, an empty plate and an irate detective, rambling about the state of a case. Sherlock cut off as the army doctor pressed a relieved kiss to his temple, smoothing his curls away from his face.

 

It was not a cure. Not an end to the detective's issues.

 

But it might have been a start.

 

****

The simple fact of it was that John liked sex.

 

There was no way around it, and no way to deny it. A man did not get the title “Three Continents Watson” without being at least somewhat interested in the idea of sex. Not to mention there was the other issue, one that neither Sherlock nor John had really gotten around to addressing:

 

John liked women.

 

_Females._

 

_The fairer sex._

 

And despite all that implied, Sherlock knew yet another thing: John... for whatever reason, was _attracted_ to him.

 

The facts were there, written in biological tells that not even a doctor could hope to hide. The way the army doctor's eyes followed him when he paced, dilated slightly and almost predatory. The way his cheeks pinkened when the detective kissed him, hungrily and without hesitation (after the first few initially shy approaches, the detective had become rather an enthusiastic participant of snogging in general). Finally, the way in which John's smile lit up when Sherlock did something especially _brilliant_ , like sunlight shining after a cold and rainy day.

 

Yes, the question of John's attraction to him wasn't the issue...

 

The issue was that Sherlock, despite his... _equipment_ down there... was mostly _male._

 

And that meant that there _should_ be no logical reason that John Watson, Captain of the fifth Northumberland Fusiliers should be _attracted_ to him...

 

_Right?_

 

****

 

Sherlock discovered in his teen years he did not usually feel the need to pack. The act of stuffing a sock or something else vaguely shaped like a phallus not only seemed humiliating but unecessary- especially since he made it a habit to never find himself stuck in a place that would require he pee in public. His genitals in general did not bother him, nor was he particularly affectionate towards their uses. They simply... existed, not particularly useful but not completely abhorrent either, and that did not change much as time went on.

 

That was until Seb.

 

Sebastian Wilkes when he had first arrived had appeared to be made of sharp smiles and the shiny edge of inherited wealth, stalking through the halls of Eton like a peacock, head held high and proud.

 

At first, Sherlock hadn't thought much about the man. Truthfully, he'd been far more interested in the mould cultures he had been growing, focused on their rate of multiplication and what it would mean for the cold-case he was working on (not that the police _knew_ he was working on them, all anonymous tips). What had attracted him to such a man of Wilkes' stature, well, Sherlock supposed it started with the man singling _him_ out. After all, brilliance needed an audience. And when it could not find one, it tended to attract the wrong sort of attention.

 

The cornering in the library had been the start. When Seb had casually mentioned that he'd seen how well Sherlock did in his classes, and how he needed to get his grades up so that his family wouldn't be on his back. Sherlock had kindly told him to _piss off,_ but Wilkes didn't seem to really understand the word _No._

 

When he'd offered the cocaine, Sherlock had initially scoffed. There was no way in _hell_ he'd be so dull, so irrepressibly _pedestrian_ as to fall for such a stupid _trick-_

 

But then Sebastian had begun to _talk_ to him, and though the young man hadn't been that interested in what he had to say, the coy, almost flirty tone that Wilkes used stirred something in Sherlock's chest that he couldn't quite identify.

 

He wasn't sure why he took that bag of powder. Why he hadn't just said _fuck off_ and been done with the whole awful mess. But there had been something about the way Seb's voice had echoed in the library, how Sherlock felt suddenly as if he were an island, drifting all alone.

 

Wilkes was especially good at that. Making people feel alone.

 

And Sherlock in the end had taken the deal, and from then on had never stopped paying for it. One way or the other, he always had to pay.

 

****

 

“You owe me at least a blowjob for that.” Sherlock sighed, breathing through the cigarette clenched between his teeth. His hands tightened about the bag holding a needle and powder, glaring up at the stars overhead. They looked down impassively, ambivalent to the exchange happening below. In the cold night air, Sherlock felt a shudder he fought to suppress. His voice was resigned. Caustic.

 

“Now or later?”

 

Sebastian breathed a smoke ring in the air, embers of his light flicking out into the darkness, only to die as they fell. His dark eyes pondered the question for a moment, mulling it over before he stated decisively “Now. My room, tonight. Dorm mate's gone and I've paid off the prefects. We can have some fun and take our time.”

 

Sherlock bit back a small grimace, grinding the last of his cigarette against the brick-work of the school. He watched as Sebastian did the same, the man's smile growing as he took in Sherlock's rigid stance. He reached out, cupping the curly-haired addict's chin and tilting it upwards, assessing his cold demeanor with a smirk. His hands had been warm. Too warm. Stifling. 

 

His voice curled around Sherlock like a snake's.

“Shall we, then?”

 

Wordlessly, the teen allowed himself to be lead, Sebastian's grip on the back of his neck as threatening as it was inescapable.

 

When they finished that night, Sherlock went to his dorm, aching but pleasantly high. In the darkness of his dorm while his dorm mate slept (Victor Trevor, but that was another story all on its own) the young man pressed the edge of a clean scalpel to the line of his ribs. If Sherlock closed his eyes, he could almost imagine what it would be like to cut upwards, cleave the damning evidence of his womanhood from him. Peel away the feeling Seb's hands had left as he had groped him, pressing him down onto his knees by tugging on his hair.

 

He could erase the voice, husky from arousal, purring in his ear.

 

_Such a slut. Now be a good little girl Like we both know you are and suck me off._

 

What lingered with Sherlock to this day, was that not once had he ever simply said _no._

 

In the end, it had been Mycroft of all people who had put his polished umbrella down. Who had said a firm _enough_ to the cycle of chaos Sherlock's life had become.

 

For that, Sherlock had never been more grateful. Or so completely and totally _furious._

 

For a long time, the detective had hated his nether-regions. The lack of a cock. If only because part of him, even if he knew it was small and stupid, thought that perhaps, Sebastian might not have named sex as his price if he'd had one.

 

****

John's touch was gentle. Feather-light, so as to almost appear as not to be there at all. Sherlock felt his breath hitch anyway, turning slowly so that he found himself face-to-face with the army doctor, the microscope he had been looking through forgotten.

 

His flatmate's eyes were hungry at they looked at Sherlock, hesitant but filled with want. Of what, Sherlock could read. He could see it in the way John's hands lingered, in the way his throat bobbed with nerves. Sherlock could trace it in the army-doctor's eyes, in the shape of his mouth. Leaning forward, the detective captured those lips in a kiss, willing down the initial surge of uncertainty that filled him even as his partner moved to draw them closer to one another, hands coming to rest on the detective's hips.

 

Middle ground, then.

 

John was nervous too.

 

For some reason, that deduction strengthened Sherlock's confidence, bolstered it. He stood from the chair he had been sitting in, using his height to push John, lightly lead him towards his bedroom. The army doctor followed agreeably, his breath coming more quickly as his hands traced the hem of Sherlock's shirt, fumbling with the buttons. With it came a brief flash of initial panic, the likes of which made Sherlock stutter in his assault of John's throat. Soon though he pressed through it, breathing into the mantra surrounding his head, the words John himself had told him again and again and yet never seemed too tired to repeat.

_Brilliant._

_Fantastic._

_He loves you._

_Trusts you._

 

And finally, more hesitantly

 

_He will give you control, if you ask for it._

 

But to ask for it, Sherlock wasn't quite sure how.

 

 


	6. Flower Petals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, back from my mini-hiatus ^.^  
> Sorry about that.... It took a while longer than I would have liked to get back on my feet... expect an update next for Free Falling and Fade to Black as they are long overdue :) 
> 
> Warnings for eating disorders, non-con (mentioned but not graphically described in this chapter) and drug use... you all get to meet this tale's version of Victor :3

 

 

_"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards"~ Soren Kierkegaard_

 

 

Of all the people at Eton, all the other students that Sherlock had yelled at, openly eviscerated, mocked, he never regretted hurting someone as deeply as he had regretted hurting Victor Trevor.

 

The first time he'd met the young man, he had been kneeling over a cardboard box in their shared dorm, holding a stack of folded clothes and peering curiously over the bridge of his glasses about the room as if he were searching for a drawer in which he could put them in. Immediately, Sherlock saw things that told him a story. Jerky sketches of charcoal across his thoughts, drawing out a rough draft of the stranger before him.

 

_Originally from some place tropical if not warm, given his deeply-set tan. Guessing Venezuela, given the fact that his shirt is the kind of touristy trash that states the name of the country in bold letters. Misses home, feels sentiment towards it, the material is thin and well-worn. Has had it for a few years, then. Family is obviously of higher wealth what with this being Eton, but it's not his parents who have the money. Grandparents, specifically grandmother. He has grown up in Venezuela but his parents work in the UK. Why did he live with his grandmother? Oh. Weak health of course when he was younger. Weak lungs. Winter would not have suited him. Old enough now that he's strong enough to survive without risking his health._

 

His deductions cut off as his new room-mate rose to his feet, form tall but solid as he reached out a strong hand in greeting. His smile had a charming sort of quality, as did the liquid brown of his eyes and the soft waves of his dark brown hair. A smattering of freckles scrunched across his nose with his grin. He held out his hand easily, exuding a mellow sort of confidence that shone like sunlight as in accented English he introduced himself.

 

“You must be my dorm-mate, Sherlock. I'm Victor Trevor, the headmaster told me about you.” The young man at Sherlock's responding silence seemed to shrink a little bit into himself, his smile fading as the darkly-curled teen didn't reciprocate his greeting. Sherlock stared harshly at the stranger, blue eyes narrowed in distrust even as he lazily drawled

 

“No doubt he was reluctant to inform you that I specifically requested I dorm alone? Or that I'm known throughout the school as someone who does not take pleasure in 'niceties'?”

 

Victor's frown was a rather delicate thing, and it looked far more likely to morph back into a smile. Sure enough, the young man laughed a moment later with ease, brown eyes sparkling jovially. Sherlock detested the wonderful noise. Hated the way it caught him off guard for a moment by its utter freeness and warmth.

 

“Well what a coincidence, I originally requested a room to myself as well. I think it's the headmaster's idea of a joke. We can be alone together.”

 

Sherlock's first impression of Victor Trevor had been that he was an idiot.

 

An overly friendly, joyful moron.

 

One who was wonderfully oblivious, given the fact that he tripped twice over Sherlock's violin case in his hasty movements to settle in. He tried to convince himself that maybe, he was just oblivious enough that he wouldn't see, wouldn't be able to tell. That he wouldn't recognise how Sherlock's voice like a wave crested and cracked higher than any man's should, or how there was not a trace of food to be found in the house. Hoped that he would not notice the lack of a bulge in his pyjama bottoms when he felt the need to enter his Mind-Palace, when he sat all but naked on the couch.

 

But most of all, Sherlock hoped that he wouldn't see the bruises lining the teen's throat, wouldn't question how Sherlock flinched with his overly-friendly touches and cheerful demeanor.

 

He assumed Victor Trevor to be an idiot because it only took a moment of meeting him to recognise that he was kind.

 

Sherlock would never make the same mistake again after him. Which was why in a way, the detective had to thank his old friend. Without Victor, he might have dismissed John. Or for that matter, Lestrade.

 

Then again without Victor, Sherlock might not have had the chance to live long enough to graduate from school, let alone meet the faithful army doctor and the DI.

He might not have lived for very long at all.

 

****

 

Hands touched the base of his neck, not to squeeze or pin but to trace, resting slightly on his pulse which thundered in his own ears like a stampede of elephants. Sherlock tilted his chin back hesitantly like a lamb offering themselves up for slaughter, ignoring the way in which his mind whispered a quiet chant of _stopstopstopstopstoptoomuchtoosoon._

 

John's hands were gentle, fingers callused but capable as they came to cup the line of his jaw, lips pressing themselves hungrily against his own. His kisses were smooth, sweet-tasting and breathy, and the detective found himself squirming under the ministrations, breaths leaving him faster as the ex-army doctor made his way steadily downwards, tongue darting towards the jut of Sherlock's collar-bones before resting just above his heart. The rasp of his flatmate's tongue seemed to light his nerve-endings on fire, creating a heated path that glowed behind Sherlock's closed eyes. He resisted the urge to writhe, instead tilting his chin further, eyes wide and lust-blown even as the pounding of his heart seemed at once from arousal as from fear.

 

It was irrational, Sherlock knew. This was _John._ He was in _**221 B.**_ The flat's trellis wallpaper served to remind him of this, even as it was pressed against his shoulder blades, digging not unpleasantly into his spine. The faded memories that clung to his skin like groping hands were nothing more than an illusion, a cautionary remembrance that there was danger in baring his heart, exposing its pumping arteries and his _vena cava_ to be handled and touched. Marked or Taken.

 

The way John kissed him, it was as if the soldier could feel such scars of his past, like he wished he could rub them away even as his hands began to lift Sherlock's shirt above his head, warm calluses spreading on taught abdomen. The sensation sent peculiar shivers through the detective's spine. Like sunlight touching his skin. However as John pressed higher, the soldier's fingers stilled, and Sherlock opened his eyes that had fallen closed in helpless conflict to see John staring up at him, blonde brows furrowed in concern. In the shadow that he created, Sherlock could see the blue of the doctor's eyes, dark and luminous in their depth, nearly swallowed whole by the centre black ring of his pupils. The sight sent an ache through Sherlock, something heady and sweet that he hadn't felt for another in a long time. It was the kind of throb that could be felt shooting from his navel all the way to his collar-bones.

 

John's voice was low. “Sherlock... Are you okay?”

 

The detective felt as if he should respond, but he found himself silent, throat closed despite the roiling and conflicting feelings surging through him. He stood pinned to the wall, heart trembling in his chest, and he counted the seconds that stretched between them as he struggled to answer. A part of him, not a very small part wanted to pull John closer, ignore his question, smother it so it lay forgotten in ash even as he would kiss and lick every line and scar that covered the man's neck and shoulders. The other part wanted to shrink, whispered to him sinuously words that were not his own, yet made him want to cross his arms over his chest, duck his head so that his chin connected with his shoulder. Hide.

 

_Slut._

_Girl._

_Your voice is too high._

_Keep your clothes on or he'll see you as a freak._

_Sebastian's hands, tugging his curls in such a way that pain and pleasure mixed and he wasn't sure if he liked it but it was better than resisting-_

 

After a moment in which quiet hung heavy between them, John sighed. The man's eyes were filled with something unrecognisable as he drew away, and Sherlock made a faint sound of protest at the abrupt loss of warmth, despite the fact that part of him was relieved. He felt as though he could finally breathe, and he did so greedily, sucking in deep lungfuls of air as quite viciously he couldn't help but sway, struggling to remain on his feet.

Blinking somewhat dazedly, he was surprised then when John's hands a moment later gently tugged his wrists, pulling Sherlock to kneel even as the army doctor crouched before him, having him lean once more against the wall even as the detective struggled to catch his breath. There was a certain grace to the movement, the detective thought, as if John were quite suddenly not so solid, something more ephemeral and vague. Yet that could be because of the state of his breathing, a harsh marching count, quick-time. Lack of oxygen in the brain.

 

He was surprised when the army doctor didn't seem to mind his meltdown, not touching but not quite moving out of his line of sight. Sherlock found himself staring into those blue eyes, catching his breath, arms automatically curled about his chest as an unexpected wave of self-loathing washed over him, sharp and visceral. He had the sudden and fierce need to hide, because under his own hands his hips did not feel right, and there was a startling empty feeling that gutted him between his legs. The shadowy feeling engulfed him, and he didn't know why, but he was trembling, and biting the inside of his cheek because all he could think about his how _his_ hands brought him to his knees and how _his_ fingers pressed against him and hurt him even though they also sometimes felt _good_ and how he couldn't _breathe-_

 

And that made him think of Victor, and Sherlock wondered not for the first or the last time if he looked as pale as his dormate had looked that night, if he was biting his lips that hard or if he was shaking as fiercely...

 

He wondered if he looked back then as John did now, so very sad, so very gentle. He wondered if he could have reached out and apologised to Victor like John was now to him, by gentle touches to his curls.

 

Sherlock wondered, not an unusual thing for him. Not while his flatmate was about.

 

He wondered if he might have prevented Victor from leaving.

 

****

“You're going to hurt yourself, doing that.”

Sherlock looked up from his chest which he had been in the middle of binding, still holding his breath even as he scowled, the end of a roll of ace bandages curled in one hand. He had accidentally burned a hole through his only binder last night, an experiment with hydrochloric acid gone horribly wrong through careless distraction. As it was he hadn't been forced to bind like this in months, and the result was glaringly poor compared to the professional compression vest he has acquired in his first week of school.

 

Victor leaned against the frame of his bedroom door, dark curls pulled back into a loose ponytail for work, a pencil tucked above the shell of his left ear. It had been nearly a month since Sherlock had found the young man moving in, and truthfully the teenager couldn't quite recall how his dormate had discovered his secret. It had been more of a gradual thing, falling apart as reluctantly Sherlock grew to admit that Victor was actually quite bright compared to the general population, yet not academically. No, the young man was an artist.

 

It had been two weeks in that Victor had asked nonchalantly why Sherlock liked to be called a guy, and when the detective had bristled, his roomate had hastened to add “It's not that I don't think you're a boy... it's just sometimes you dress.... well, differently. So I'm wondering... are you a boy? Or a girl?”

As it turned out, Sherlock had not predicted the fact that being an art student, his roomate had an eye for figure. “Something in the shape of your hips told me. Not to mention that you're downright lazy in where you leave your binders.” He had admitted. After that, Sherlock was careful to walk differently, with a slightly wider gait.

 

As it was though, the dark-eyed boy hadn't said much more about Sherlock's gender representation, something the teen was grateful for, especially since there were days in which the detective felt as if he was lost, a blurred and indistinct background noise in sharp contrast of clarity. Something between here and there. No, Victor had instead watched, a quiet observer, that was until he walked in to find Sherlock trying his damnedest to be as flat as he could before he was forced to endure through his physics class.

 

“Breathing is good, 'Lock. Take it from someone who couldn't for much of his childhood without having some kind of humidifying tank beside him.”

 

“I am quite aware of the strain this puts on my ribs, _thank you very much._ Tell me, when did you decide to mother me instead of simply raid my notes for studying?”

 

He quirked a dark brow as Victor smiled slightly, freckles crinkling at the corner of his eyes. His voice was low and dry with amusement.

“Hm, I think the first day really. I saw your experiment, the one with the thumbs. Knew you were trouble then.” His tone was almost playful, and for a moment Sherlock forgot himself, almost smiled despite the fact that his goal had been only to ostracise and get rid of the peculiar man who had rather forcibly wedged himself into his life. Pressing the last of the bandage to the jut of his collarbone he straightened, refusing to wince as he inhaled- unable to quite exhale fully. He reached for the button-down lying on his bed even as he spoke.

 

“Yes, well I'm not one to take advice from someone who cannot even be bothered to wear matching _socks_ in the morning.” His pale eyes flicked pointedly to Victor's feet, his smirk widening as he saw the clashing red and green cuffs peeking over his dormate's shoes. Victor chuckled, the sound low, but it cut off when he saw the material of Sherlock's shirt. Black silk. Fancy. His frown was small, strangely unsettling on his normally sunny face, and he looked up at Sherlock uncertainly.

 

“I thought we had plans to eat Indian take-away tonight. You're going out? I made hummus...”

 

“Change of plans.” The darkly-curled teen lied smoothly, blue eyes flicking to his hands even as he did up the buttons of his shirt from the bottom-up. Sherlock's words were partially true at least, Sebastian had met up with him in that library for the first time only a month or so before, and he had run out of the second batch of drug he had gotten as of three days ago. For three days he had debated with himself, fighting over whether or not he should meet up with the shark-smile man. Yet finally, the calling had made him give in.

After all, Sherlock's thoughts were crowding him, making him feel as though he was wearing a binder twenty-four/seven. He could handle Sebastian, manipulate him. Even if he didn't have any money to speak of right now...Even if last time... he...

Sherlock was confident he could get around the price, if need be.

 

He was aware that Victor was peering at him closely, dark eyes uncertain. He seemed to be hemming and hawing over something, biting the inside of his cheek as if holding back a question that was prickling at the base of his neck. At Sherlock's unflinching stare, he seemed to finally bring himself to ask.

 

“You haven't... Have you been seeing someone?”

 

Sherlock wondered to himself briefly if Victor would consider his meetings with Sebastian a relationship. Not that there had been any sex really,  none that counted, but out of everyone at the school, Sherlock had walked away the most satisfied with his encounters with the man. It wouldn't come as a surprise to him, really, if Victor thought him just the slightest bit infatuated. Sherlock was after all, a very good liar.

 

“...Something of that nature.”

 

Immediately the teen brightened, a mischievous glint in his eye forming as his grin returned. He came forward to poke Sherlock in the ribs consiprationally, innocently ignoring the way the young man winced, clutching his middle. 

 

“Who is it then? Someone brilliant I'm sure... let me guess.... is it that girl from Chem? Kathleen Benson? She's been eyeing you apparently since the beginning of the year...”

 

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock snorted in distaste. As if he'd ever date someone who had an obsessive-compulsive nail-biting habit and owned five cats. Not to mention the woman was utterly intolerable to talk to. No sense of adventure to her. No.

 

Victor was unperturbed by his quelling look, keeping on insistently even as Sherlock moved to get ready, shrugging on a soft black coat for warmth and toeing on his shoes. He pestered not unlike a mother hen, reaching to straighten Sherlock's collar and fussing good-naturedly, a habit left over from living in a large house with an even larger extended family. He only stopped when the darkly-curled teen finally shot him a look, the kind that had he been younger might have sent him into an asthma attack out of pure fear.

 

Still, his smile was impish. Almost proud. Against Sherlock's will, he found a small smirk crawling onto his lips, trying to stay. Victor stopped his fooling around long enough to look Sherlock in the eye, voice dropping seriously as he stated “Whoever it is, I hope they're worth you. You deserve some happiness in your life, Sherlock Holmes. Don't let it slip through your fingers, just 'cos your family is full of cocks.”

 

And the strange, eclectic roomate beamed at him, and for once in his life, the young man didn't quite know what to say. Because no one had thought him _worthy_ of dating before, and in the quiet of his mind, Sherlock often thought himself untouchable. Unreachable.

It was strange, how some people just shattered that illusion, as sure as crushing flowers into the cup of their palms.

 

If Victor had known what Sebastian would demand later on that night, had he been awake when Sherlock finally stumbled home, bruised and shaken and far more shattered than he would ever let on, he might not have smiled so warmly as his friend gave an almost shy wave in departure.

 

****

 

Victor had grown up with sweltering heat at times, climbing humidity. When he had been a child, it had saved his lungs. However back in the UK in the middle of Winter, it did little to give him tolerance against the cold. When he first approached Sherlock with the question that would end their chance acquaintance, he had been wrapped up to his ears in a bright blue scarf. His hands had been covered by woollen mittens. A hat, crammed over his dark brown waves, matched the dark black colour of his coat. Under it, Sherlock could just make out his scowl of distaste as he watched him snub out the end of his cigarette, scrubbing it against the side of the school so that the smoke wouldn't irritate his friend's breathing. Sherlock liked to think himself a considerate smoker.

 

“Those things will kill you.” His friend had muttered by way of greeting, shivering even as snow fell about the two young men, drifting between them. Sherlock didn't answer, not the slightest bit cold, partly due to constitution and partly due to the fact that he was still running on the last dredges of a high. The creak of his ribs was a welcome blossom of pain as he shrugged, warm and tingling as he responded softly “Breathing is boring.”

 

“It's not. Believe me, it's _really_ not.” Victor sighed, but he smiled in fond exasperation even as he leaned against the wall beside the taller man. Though Sherlock had gotten lucky in the height department (father had towered, and so would he as luck would have it) the teen's hips still flared outwards in comparison, something that drove the young man to distraction that he didn't let show. He breathed in instead the cold air, letting it pinken his nose, glassy eyes fluttering closed in euphoria even as he buzzed with energy. Wonderful, the feeling of nothing. Especially when it was just slight enough that the crashing hadn't set in, but no one could quite tell he was gone from it all. All of his private critiques of both himself and others, dampened like they were wrapped in wet cloth.

 

“It's your turn to go shopping. You said you'd do it last week. Never did.” At his friend's words the young man's good mood diminished slightly, a small scowl settling over his features at the thought of food. Useless, really. The needs of transport were always so demanding. Victor seemed oblivious to his discomfort, carrying on lightly. “Man cannot survive on canned goods alone.”

 

In response Sherlock snorted, gazing up at the clouded sky. Snow flakes fell, clumping in his dark lashes. When he blinked they melted, streaming down his face in a caricature of tears. Though his words were mocking, his hands were tight in his pockets. Tense.

“Food is for the weak.”

 

“So sue me, I'm a pansy. I'll still need my bacon in the morning, _hermano_.” Then Victor looked at him more closely, a small frown coming to his features as he noticed his friend's posture. Cautiously, Victor peered.

“You okay? You're looking a little pale.”

 

Sherlock knew it was likely from the fact that he hadn't eaten in about three days. He also knew that Victor would not take kindly to this admittance. He also was aware that the reasons for _why_ he hadn't (Sebastian had been brutal this week, and every time he thought about eating it sent waves of anxiety and unease through him) would only bring his friend distress. So, choosing instead a carefully crafted half-truth, Sherlock replied.

 

“I haven't eaten today. Got lost in my Mind-Palace for a while, time flew. I was... out last night.”

 

His friend relaxed, smiling jovially.

“Well then, let's get you something to eat!”

 

Sherlock didn't quite have it in his heart to deny that face, especially when it looked at him with such open and adoring warmth. Like a brother. The man's throat tightened, thoughts of Mycroft coming to him for the first time in months. Almost a year.

 

Yes...

In some ways, Sherlock wished that Victor had been his brother...Not the cold man who hadn't bothered to call, not since the day Sherlock arrived at his school and announced that Shyla was dead and gone.

 

 

 


	7. Thoughts By Starlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy ^_^ Triggers are in the tags as per usual.

 

 

_I like being alone, but I don't like being lonely~ Unknown_

 

 

“Will you at least drink something, if you're just going to pick your breakfast to pieces?”

 

Sherlock didn't respond nor did he look up from the bowl of cereal he was currently trying to stir to bits, his cerulean gaze seemingly absorbed in the floating cheerios before him. Over the course of the past few days, John had steadily been trying to get him to eat. It had so far been largely a success, if only because the doctor was incredibly stubborn, when he put his mind to it. The fact was he was not afraid to twist the detective's metaphorical arm, and though John pretended not to know Sherlock's weak points, he had no trouble using them when it came to the detective's health.

Three square meals. Small meals. But... three.

 

_Three._

 

Full meals.

It felt impossible. Too much. Far... _far too much._

The bowl looked thoroughly unappetizing before him, the floating contents already turning into mush. The glint of his spoon was quicksilver, but it felt dull in the detective's hands. Heavy. Everything... felt so heavy.

 

Neither he nor John were speaking of the previous events. Wilfully ignoring it, too apprehensive to speak up, either way it didn't much matter. When it came down to it, it amounted to the same, awkward silence in _**221 B.**_ A painful kind of tip-toe, the likes of which Sherlock normally would not have been able to tolerate under normal circumstances for a day, much less a week as it was coming to. Except this time, he found that he was the one instigating it, insisting upon mute contemplation of their respective meals. The detective stirred his cheerios again, hazarding after a moment to bring a spoonful to his lips. He could practically feel John's eyes upon him, burning a small hole into his skull. His flatmate sat across from him, own bowl in hand, yet there was less eating on John's side and more subtle glancing. Irritating. It was all so bloody _irritating._

 

Sherlock brought the spoon down with clattering force and glared, food untouched. The blazing hatred of his gaze was met with his flatmate-turned recent partner's unflinchingly bland stare, John's arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the table. His voice was steady, gentle but firm as he rose, moving to set aside his empty bowl into the sink. The calm contrasted sharply against the gentle order he gave.

“Eat a bit, Sherlock.”

 

A flash of challenge in his flatmate's eyes, Sherlock folded his hands in his lap. His head tilted to the side, something mean and petulant lingering in his eyes to cover his own vulnerability and shame at the situation. The awkward demand that John felt forced to give. His voice was sickly sweet, smooth at changing the subject.

“Do all your partners wind up having full-blown panic attacks before things even get started, or are you just a natural at this? You seem to be taking this entire situation rather well.”

 

It was no compliment. Rather, more like a spear lanced through the doctor's heart. The cutting depth of the man's voice was ice, but John did not shy away from it, his jaw instead tightening minutely. Slowly, he took a deep breath, letting the words slide over him without drawing blood. When Sherlock was embarrassed, he was fundamentally cruel, and the army doctor had known it from day one. Sally Donovan alone was proof of that, Sherlock's venomous observations that first night obviously from personal slight and annoyance.

 

As it was, John did not rise to the bait, instead seating himself closer to the detective at the kitchen table, pushing the bowl that had been nudged to the side back to centre. Forcing it back in the detective's line of vision. Sherlock expected his flatmate to merely continue his silent vigil of the detective's progress, and was instead surprised when John's hand reached out, the soldier's expression softening minutely as he brushed Sherlock's upturned palm, tracing the outlines of the man's veins, blue under paper-white skin. John was decidedly quieter as he spoke, turning his original demand into more of a plea as he murmured

“It's not your fault. We went too fast and you startled and that's _okay._ It's not your fault so please... just eat _something._ I can't stand it, watching you do this-”

 

John's voice cracked then, wavering for a second. It was too much, Sherlock turned to his only line of defence, caustic cruelty.

 

 

“That's not _why-_ ” He spat, hackles rising defensively despite himself as his hands came down to slam against the table without mercy. His spoon shivered in the bowl, tinkling as if in fear of his nameless rage. The detective found himself gripping the wooden edges, furious again for what felt like no justifiable reason, yet angry all the same. Essentially, Sherlock was aware that John was only trying to help. _Logically,_ the detective knew the army doctor was blaming _himself_ for last night's misconducts. _Reasonably,_ Sherlock knew that he should be comforting _John,_ trying to at least make an _effort_ with the thoroughly unappetizing breakfast before him.

 

Yet for all of his love of reason and logic, Sherlock's greatest embarrassment to himself was that when it came down to it, he was _not_ a logical man. Right now, he was _angry._ Right now... he was _trapped._ Like many a cornered animal, the detective felt the need to defend himself. Even if it meant chewing off his own metaphorical leg in the process. Still John flinched back as the man rose, crowding his space and trying to appear bigger. Sherlock's teeth were bared in frustration. His voice was sinuous like thunder. Deadly. It rose with his tirade.

 

It was without thinking that he snarled “I am _not_ a fucking head-case for you to analyse, _doctor,_ and last night _does not_ mean that I am by any means _fragile._ So you can take your pity, your kind words, your _sentiment_ and shove it cleanly right up your-”

 

“ _Sherlock!”_

 

The voice cut through the man's rant like it was made of butter, and Sherlock fell silent, a fire doused by rain.

 

The detective froze, wide-eyed and quiet as Mrs Hudson's shocked voice turned the kitchen into stone for an instant. The tail-end of his insult swiftly turned to sand in his mouth, and he realised what he had just said, the past two minutes rushing over him with a moment of clarity that left him near-dizzy and disoriented. When he realised the words that had almost come from his mouth, his skin turned if possible paler than it already was. Before him, John's jaw was clenched so tightly that his lips were pursed white.

 

Immediately the detective turned, facing the elderly woman who was frowning in hurt and surprise before him. Mrs Hudson's gaze was filled with disapproval, her hands on her hips as she stated with a deadly kind of finality

 

“I think that's _quite enough_ , young man.”

 

The detective, straightening to his full height in as much chastisement as shame, found himself agreeing, though his hands curled into fists at his side. Across from him John's face was carefully blank, the kind of expression the army doctor wore only to ensure that Sherlock didn't see the hurt he'd caused. His hands were half-curled in his lap, digging into the meat of his palms with his fingernails. Still Sherlock could parse through the deflection, envision the pain underneath the mask of indifference. John was trying very hard not to let it show how hard his left hand was trembling, and he winced with the shift of his hips in the chair, leg twinging, causing him pain.

 

Jaw tightening, the detective's eyes lowered to the floor as Mrs Hudson chided him, clearly seeing his uncharacteristically chastised expression. The elderly woman was surprisingly brutal, tearing into him with a vehemence that would have made lesser men cower.

 

“Honestly, the _mouth_ on you sometimes! And it's only when people are trying to help you, stubborn...” She continued to mutter in varying levels of annoyance even as she stalked forward, setting herself between John and Sherlock like a buffering device. Her gentle hands crossed themselves over her chest, and she faced the detective as a silently burning flame, quickly dissolving into something gentler when she took in how hard the curly-haired man was trembling. Sherlock stared at the ground, blue eyes flicking at anywhere and everywhere but the two faces before him. His shoulders were hunched inward, as if he wished not to be seen. Like a schoolboy, bracing himself for punishment. In a croaking rasp, the detective muttered something unintelligible under his breath. It sounded vaguely defensive.

 

Mrs Hudson's gaze softened into nothing more than wet tears, and somehow that was worse, far worse than the old woman's ire. She looked over the man critically, more her son than a tenant to a flat, and noted with some surprise just how pale the detective was, how he seemed to have lost weight. Sherlock had a tendency to be on the thin side, but he didn't normally look so gaunt, like a skeleton attempting to remain upright. There were dark, purplish shadows blooming under his eyes, and his long fingers were restless, tapping away. Though the elderly woman didn't know of the true danger of Sherlock's physical state, she did indeed know some things, and that was that her detective was prone to bouts of what could only be described as depression. Fits of ennui of which in the past used to cripple him, drain the colour out of the world around him. At one time, the young man might have solved this sadness, this disgust with the human race by stimulating his thoughts with drugs. Powerful thing, cocaine was. As well as heroin. Mrs Hudson's own husband had been involved in all sorts of sordid things of that nature, and she knew first-hand how very easy it could be to lose control. Henry hadn't always been a bad man, and it hadn't been until it was too late that she had been able to see the darkness that had consumed him. She was no stranger to waking up with bruises, to feeling as if the world had gone grey overnight, washed out by tears and sleepless nights. She knew that Sherlock had once been a little girl named Shyla, and she knew from that alone the detective arguably had enough ammunition with which he could likely justify a relapse.

 

Yet John had come, and John had _stayed_. Impossibly, she had prayed and hoped it would be enough. Still here she was, and she could now see that the army doctor was reaching a breaking point, and that Sherlock did not look well. Not at all. He looked... well he looked like a ghost. Like chalk. Used and powdery and fragile.

 

Mrs Hudson's voice was like rain falling against a cold window as she revealed what she had hidden in her hands, and it took Sherlock a second longer than normal to deduce the contents of the pale envelope in her grasp. The post had accidentally sent it to the wrong address, she had been coming up to deliver it. Had heard the shouting. He found his cheeks flushed a dull hue of shame, and through tight lips he straightened even while avoiding the army doctor's gaze, murmured

 

“Apologies, John. It appears that I need... some time to think.”

 

It was all he could say, as feeble an apology it was. Thankfully, the army doctor seemed to accept it, relaxing fractionally in his chair, fingers stilling their restless shaking. John's eyes were filled with a sick kind of fear, but he showed his trust to Sherlock with his words. They were uttered without a trembling syllable, certain despite their grim tone. A soldier watching the aftermath of a bomb from a distance. It felt like an entire desert in that moment was stretched out between them.

“Go think for a bit. Get outside... clear your head.”

 

Sherlock would have liked to have stayed, would have liked to have fought it out. He would have loved nothing more than to tear that composure apart, dig his fingers into it until it came apart red in his hands. He wished for nothing more than to rip open the beating heart of a clockwork design, John Watson, to see inside. Find what made him refuse to give up. Get angry.

Leave.

That was the reason in the end why he turned, grabbing his coat, shucking it up and over onto his shoulders. For Sherlock knew without a shadow of a doubt he _could_ do such a thing, and that not even Mrs Hudson would have been able to stop him, should he have chose. Truthfully however, he was not sure that John would have stayed, should he have done something so utterly, completely unforgivable.

 

The fear of his friend's endless patience finally falling dry and acrid forced Sherlock Holmes into tactical retreat.

Had it been even ten years ago, he might have been utterly disgusted with himself. As it was, he was oddly, meekly proud.

 

 

 

****

It had been nearly a year before Victor had discovered his habit. It had been the skipping meals he'd figured out first, though not exactly due to anything life-threatening. Rather, what had given Sherlock away was of all things his brother, or how the young man acted around him.

 

Mycroft when he had showed up had gained about ten pounds since the last time Sherlock had seen him. The elder of the two Holmes had never exactly been sprightly, leaning more towards their father's build. Though by no means fat, it meant that Sherlock had ammunition as petty as it was, and he used it ruthlessly upon discovering the goal of his older brother's visit:

 

Namely, trying to convince Sherlock to let their mother back into his life.

 

Yet it had quickly gotten out of hand when the elder Holmes had looked upon his younger brother's form, pale eyes sweeping over his rail-thin frame, paling at what he saw. Immediately, Sherlock's worse secrets were thrown hissingly out into the open, Mycroft unable to believe quite what he was seeing through deduction, for once unable to control his emotions as he'd snarled “ _Drugs,_ Shyla? _You're taking Drugs?_ What the hell are you thinking?!”

 

Victor had woken to plates being thrown, shattering sharply throughout their dorm room like the shriek of children. Above them, Sherlock's voice, cracking into his higher register and almost shrill as he snarled out abuses in his older brother's direction. The sound of it sent a distinct chill through the art student's bones, as he had never heard his friend sound so downright furious. Victor had risen from his bed in a tussle, barely able to shrug his pyjama bottoms over his hips before his legs were carrying him. He caught his foot on the edge of his bedroom door, curse words flowing from his tongue as without pause he continued towards the source of the argument. There, he found a strange young man, ginger-haired and cold in a three-piece suit and tie, shouting down his dormate without mercy.

Neither Holmes appeared to even acknowledge the fact that they'd woken the man at seven in the morning, nor did they bother to lower their voices. Sherlock was too angry, and Mycroft was uncaring.

 

The younger Holmes' hands were clenched at his sides as defiantly he'd retaliated. “You do not get to come in here and tell me what to do with my life and my money. You do not get to control me. You _do not_ get to berate me when all these years you've only cared as much to phone me once every few months!”

 

“Do I get to state out loud that you're killing yourself slowly? That you seem hell-bent on ensuring that our mother can't ever mention you in polite company to her friends? As your brother do I not get to _warn_ you that I've seen your bank balance and you've only bought enough food to total to about one thousand calories _for this month?_ ”

 

Nervous ticks, Victor had a habit of picking up on them. As it was, he saw Sherlock's upper lip twitch in distaste, masking the surprise he felt for outrage. Victor to be honest didn't blame Sherlock for feeling overwhelmed, as it was he was desperately trying to understand a situation that had crept up on him seemingly from behind. He had no clue who this strange man was, but he seemed to be accusing his friend, and that alone did not sit well with him. Automatically he could feel his proverbial hackles rising at the bored, slightly haughty expression on the man's face before him, and sleep-deprived as he was Victor thought not much of snapping “Who in the _hell_ are you?! And why in the world are you calling _Sherlock_ Shyla?!”

 

Victor watched as the man in the suit seemed to acknowledge him for the first time, although there was little doubt in the young man's mind that the mysterious official had seen him from the beginning. His pale eyes flicked over him in such a way that was distinctly Sherlockian, and the brown-haired teen felt as if a layer of skin had been peeled from his body in that single glance. Unlike Sherlock's usual assessing pattern of deducting then promptly blurting out whatever he had seen, the cold figure smiled a reptilian smile. Victor was rather reminded of the snakes he'd used to sometimes poke with sticks in his yard when he had been a child. He found his upper lip curling in decided distaste.

 

“Apologies for the rude awakening, Mr. Trevor. Please, allow me to apologise on behalf of my sister's rudeness. It was my intention to merely have a polite discussion, but as you've likely already figured out, such a thing is quite often impossible with Shyla.”

 

Victor's eyes narrowed in such a way that Sherlock was distinctly reminded of a wolf, and his friend had never before looked quite so tense, ready to fight. The normally relaxed line of his dormate's shoulders were coiled, and his accented voice came as more of a growling threat than anything else. Blunt and to the point, Victor was startlingly rude. The sharp contrast of it to his normally overly enthusiastic and friendly aura caused Sherlock to pause mid-yell, rather taken aback.

 

“Does the head of the school know you're trespassing on our room? Because if he doesn't I will make it my personal mission that he find out soon enough.” The cold, cutting certainty in Victor's brown eyes made the warm colour of his irises appear hard and ruthless. Sherlock until that moment hadn't realised quite how tall his friend was, but straightening, Victor reached Mycroft's height- surpassed it even. His normally stork-like limbs appeared now to be agile, braced as if for an impending brawl. The younger Holmes watched in silence as his older brother's smile didn't shrink, for once rather wide-eyed and stunned. Not because Victor was standing up for him, but because Mycroft didn't seem to know what to make of the man before him. Oh, he hid it well, but the elder Holmes was startled at having been so bluntly called out, and it threw him for a moment, long enough to allow a breath of hesitation, the likes of which Victor leapt upon and took advantage of in order to continue.

 

“Furthermore, I wouldn't know about your _sister,_ as you don't have one. _Sherlock_ on the other hand, can be admittedly quite a handful. But then again, if it's this early in the morning, then it's likely because there's too much stupid in the room.”

 

Mycroft's eyes crinkled at the corners as if he found the jibe absolutely amusing, but his gaze was rather dead. Leaning against a black umbrella, the elder Holmes' dry wit retorted without much preamble

“Well then, you best leave, shouldn't you?”

 

Victor however didn't seem to see it much as a joke. It was clear in the way he stepped forward, physically barring the elder Holmes from coming nearer to Sherlock. The darkly-curled detective for his part was rather dazed, blinking in surprise. He hadn't expected _anyone_ to stand up for him, hadn't been able to afford such thinking ever since he'd wheedled money for hormones out of the Holmes family name and gallivanted off. Yet even so, Victor was a real and solid presence, and the like of it was like looking directly into a blazing inferno. Completely unprepared, Sherlock felt rather blinded.

 

“Back in my home country, I watched two siblings fight, once.” Victor's voice was very soft, and he crossed his arms over his chest, armour against some invisible force. “I watched as the older one beat the younger one in public on the street, called him a fag because he had caught him wearing earrings. I was only six, didn't really get it honestly.” His smile was rather embittered, darker. More serious than Sherlock had ever seen before. It faded as Victor finished. “I don't plan on sitting by and watching it happen again. Not now that I'm older. And most certainly not in my own dorm.”

 

Mycroft's voice was disbelieving. “You cannot believe I'd actively harm my younger sis-”

 

“I know that _your brother_ once cried for almost an hour in the bathroom when he thought I wasn't around because he'd gotten his period and the cramps had made it impossible to sit through class.” Behind Victor, a startled intake of breath. Sherlock looked at the back of the brown curls before him, hardly daring to believe. Still, his friend continued ruthlessly, crowding Mycroft's personal space with every breath. “I know that Sherlock never talks to his family, never calls them. Except for once a month, a letter he writes to one _M.H_ Holmes. He looks sick whenever he writes it, like he has no choice.”

 

Mandatory updates about his grades. It had been part of Mycroft's bargain with Sherlock. The younger Holmes felt his throat constrict, warmth burning behind his eyes. Mycroft's voice was glass, sharp and poignant and aimed to lacerate. It made Sherlock flinch, curling protectively. He knew that kind of voice. The bullying tone. Unwillingly, Sebastian's face flickered in his thoughts. Muddling with things. His heart fluttered with unease in his chest.

“Do you know that he hasn't eaten more than five hundred calories per day for almost a month? Have you noticed the cuts he's been hiding underneath his clothing- the ones you can see he's scratching at now?” Victor was stock-still, a statue in front of Sherlock. He did not turn to look yet still the detective's nails were loud against the cloth of his own sleeve. He too froze, his secrets laid out before him. A strangled

“Mycroft-” left his lips, pleading, yet still the elder Holmes pressed on. Once he started, it appeared that Mycroft planned on sealing Sherlock's fate.

 

“My _sibling_ is extremely prone to addictive tendencies and _delusions,_ and I have made the mistake of catering to some of the... _less_ harmful ones.” Mycroft's lips twitched, and Sherlock's hands tightened, curling in at his chest. This was not his brother. This was not _Mycroft._ Something was _wrong_ and he knew it, his mother had said something... But still the words cut him, rendered him swaying and speechless and cowering like a kicked dog. His brother had never pretended to understand... but he had never been _hateful_ towards him. Not until now. Yet in Mycroft's eyes there was a remoteness, a cool kind of steel that shone like a blade over a chopping block. Delivering blow after blow, it promised to rend Sherlock into pieces. For a second, the detective felt a horrifying well of pity for the people he so often tore apart. Suddenly a victim, his skin felt lived under, touched by dirty and unseen hands.

 

Still his brother didn't stop, and the detective could see Victor's hands tightening into fists, could imagine his brow ticking in disbelief. Denial. Yet even so the pieces would fall together for him, impossible not to miss. The empty cupboards. The long, long showers. The longer sleeves and the slow maddening shrinking that was not enough and yet all at once too much. It would all come together, and Victor would _see._ Sherlock up until then had never noticed... never known how much he _hated_ the thought of that. His friend looking and _seeing..._ Seeing... what was so obvious to everyone else.

“However, Mr Victor Demetrio Trevor, do not come to _me_ claiming I know nothing, when it is clear that my... _brother_ has deceived you for far too long.”

 

The breaking point came then, the moment in which Sherlock decided he had to _forcibly_ stop his brother from uttering another word, for if he did the world would crack, a tea-pot shattering into a million pieces- “Do not come to me pretending you know him, when you can't even spot the _bruising_ that he's covered with a scarf about his neck-” Sherlock stepped forward, ducking past Victor's frame. His fist came around before he could quite stop it, landing squarely across Mycroft's cheek. The satisfying _crack_ that resounded had seemed to echo, along with the pulse in Sherlock's ears. His brother had stumbled back, but not enough. Never enough. A part of Sherlock would always know that his elder brother expected him to strike out, and would bemoan in private his own predictability.

 

For a second, the kitchen fell to silence. The sound of Sherlock's own panting, heaving chest, of Mycroft's quiet moan of pain sounded heavily in the air. Everything was too hot, Sherlock's binder clung to him like a second skin, sweat pooled at the jut of his collar-bones. His heart felt like it was fit to burst outside of his skin, consume him in wet blood and hot fire. He did not dare turn around, could not bear to see what he might find. Instead Sherlock stared, feeling hot tears burning traitorously in his eyes. His voice was a quiet and rasping hiss.

“You had no right.”

 

Muffled behind his hands, Mycroft's voice held no triumph. Instead, it was vaguely sad. “You wouldn't come home. I had no choice.” For a moment, he was no member of the British government. Just a tired young man, haggard and overworked. Mycroft's calm demeanour melted into something small. Defeated in the knowledge that he'd broken something beyond repair. “You can't go on like this. You'll die. And if you won't accept my help, then you'll accept that of a friend.”

 

_Caring is not an advantage._

 

Sherlock's voice had sounded distant even in his own ears. Surrounded by shattered dishware, his knuckles bloody and bruised, he likely looked like he was made of the coldest of stone. Yet he felt like he was molten lava. Unformed. Out of control. His voice lowered to a whisper. “I have no friends.”

 

He waited in vain for Victor to say something. Deny such a claim. Instead there was only shocked silence. Sherlock couldn't stand to look up.

 

So instead, hands tightening at his sides, he ran. He left the kitchen, ignoring two voices shouting his name ( _Shyla- Sherlock! Sherlock Holmes! 'Lock please, wait!)_ and went out into the night. No coat, no gloves. Only a worn blue scarf, smoke on his breath, and a half pack of cigs to his name.

That was the first night Sherlock ever carved words into his skin. It came when he wound up at Sebastian's, shivering and cold and wet. He clung to the man, uncaring for once and desperate. Wanting touch, needing it. Hating it. Seeking only to affirm that his skin was his own, that it was not just an illusion. A cloak. 

 

Across his right leg, Sherlock carved _Girl._

On his left, hand slightly more steady, he wrote _Boy._ The edge of the  _Y_ dripped, trailing into the crook of his thigh muscle. 

 

Neither word fit when he looked in the mirror, and so he slashed the words to ribbons, uncaring of the sting or the pull of the blade. Uncaring really of everything, as he lay on Sebastian's dirty bathroom floor, the fluorescent light keeping him awake and nightmares at bay even as his thoughts tore him apart. His Mind-Palace was far more frayed than his skin could ever be. At the end of the day, if he was a boy or a girl, he still bled red. Somehow, that thought was comforting. Comforting enough that his thoughts slowed, and Sherlock Holmes fell into a dreamless and dark sleep. 

****

As Sherlock walked in the darkness of London's streets, he thought about that night. Considered the feeling of loneliness he had felt, lying on that floor. Utterly alone. He was alone now, and he thought that perhaps a younger version of himself might have feared such isolation. Yet now, now there was something to go home to. People. That was, if John could forgive him for his sharp edges. His own crawling doubts. 

The detective marveled at how such a small, insignificant thing could make all the world of difference. 

With the glow of a cigarette between his lips, Sherlock smoked, and thought. The savour of nicotine on his tongue was as soothing and bright as the stars, peeking out from clouds overhead. 

Alone or loneliness, something told him that soon he'd have to choose just which he'd prefer. 

 


	8. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay things are both looking up and down for the boys in this chapter ^.^ enjoy :)

 

 

_“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” ~ Jim Morrisen_

 

 

Like a long, slow trial by fire, things didn't exactly get easier between Sherlock and John. Yet… somehow… the two of them became stronger. Or maybe, the detective finally opened his eyes to just how quickly things had spiralled downwards, and how completely hateful the idea was of giving up to him. So, like any Holmes with determination alight anew, Sherlock pushed himself. John saw, and so, John pushed as well. A soldier, supporting a comrade if only by the quiet encouragement in his touch, the murmured appreciation of Sherlock’s effort whispered to him at night when they were curled about one another, the night seeming endless and yet all at once too small.

 

There were still rough patches. Sherlock, despite his newfound tenacity, still ate pitifully small amounts when in comparison to John’s diet. Yet that in itself was perhaps not entirely due to his disorder, as the detective had never really had much of an appetite, even as a child. A sparrow-like eater, the detective had always preferred to pick, rather than sit down and eat a full meal.

 

Neither of them had brought up sex again, either. John due to the fact that he felt as if Sherlock would approach him again when he was ready (and fear that if he approached too soon he might destroy all of his partner’s hard work inadvertently), Sherlock held back by his own embarrassment and fickle pride. It was like a miserable merry-go-round, and neither one was completely sure just how to step off.

 

Instead they danced about each other, closer than they had been for weeks with their joint determination to beat Sherlock’s eating disorder, and yet further away than they had ever been before in the bedroom. It was absolutely _maddening._

 

Likewise, at about the same time, John came home one fated evening to find to his surprise Sherlock gone, and the elder Holmes sitting placidly in his place, twirling the handle of his umbrella absently. Clutching an armful of groceries, John paused in the doorway, a curious mix of tentative curiosity and open distaste wavering on his features.

 

He wasted no time in pleasantries.

 

“Where have you been these past months?”

Mycroft, to his credit, merely arched a brow in answer. The elder Holmes brother looked polished, deliberately immaculate in his appearance. Clean. Yet John could sense in the air something heavy and oppressive, a weight that followed Mycroft Holmes wherever he went, unrelentingly pressing upon those around him.

 

His voice was smooth and intentionally non-confrontational, yet still John felt his proverbial hackles rising, something decidedly smarmy in Mycroft’s tone.

“A bit presumptuous, inquiring of my endeavours? do you truly think John, that the British government now answers to ex military doctors?”

 

“They do when their brother’s are facing eating disorders and admit to having been sexually abused in the past.” John growls, refusing to parse words. He held his ground like a bulldog, stubborn in his determination to gain answers. To his surprise, his retort causes the elder Holmes to flinch if only so slightly, his mask for a moment molding into something less neutral, more pained before sliding into casual indifference. He glanced at his hands, still turning the handle of his brolly without any real destination in mind. Mycroft’s voice was low, even. Admitting defeat even while shifting the blame away from himself.

 

“....Perhaps. Yet, the question that I would pose to you would be, would Sherlock have wanted my presence?” John didn’t answer, hands tightening at his sides. His reply would only be what the older man expected it to be, a resounding and screaming NO written into Sherlock’s current absence, something John saw now was deliberate, likely the result of Lestrade calling him away to a case. Mycroft continued to fix upon him a look that was as pale as it was knowing, something dead and cold in the expression. The army doctor found himself sitting across from the man, not bothering to offer tea. Somewhat childishly, it was of John’s opinion that the man didn’t really deserve it.

 

“ _Why_ are you here then?” He demanded instead, elbows braced against his knees, blue eyes steady and solid and unflinching under Mycroft’s stare. Though his posture was openly relaxed, it was a deliberate show. Something that John knew Mycroft would be able to read, should he know him at all. The elder Holmes did not answer straight away, instead choosing to answer John’s question with an inquiry of his own after a put-upon sigh.

 

“Because, John Watson. Despite my… brother’s beliefs, I do… _care_ about his well-being.” The elder Holmes said the word care with the same uncomfortable expression that someone might wear if a dog decided to pee on their shoes, reluctant and decidedly ill at ease. John was quick to pick up where the man’s hesitations lay, and his voice dropped a note in suppressed anger as he calmly asked

 

“What happened between you two? You don’t agree with Sherlock’s choice obviously. All of this. You don’t… see him as your brother-”

 

“I see him perfectly fine, Doctor Watson.” And the man’s voice was crackling suddenly, cold and merciless. The oppressive weight grew heavier, pressing onto John’s shoulders as the hidden wrath of the British  Government revealed itself for a moment, terrifying and unmerciful. Mycroft’s voice did not rise, but it turned as icy and frigid as a lake in winter. “I will admit to have making mistakes in the past, unintentionally aggravating situations in which I would have been better suited towards keeping my hand out of. But do not,for one second, accuse me of not knowing my little brother.”

 

John blinked, feeling his throat tighten slightly at the ache behind Mycroft’s words. For he could see it now, carefully concealed under a mask of uncaring-

The elder Holmes was worried.

 

and the words, spoken so out of turn for Mycroft Holmes, echoed in John’s mind: _I worry about him. Constantly._

The army doctor, normally uncaring and flippant about Mycroft’s wants and needs, found himself relating to the man, something lodged in his chest that was tight and painful. His voice was gentler, tempered slightly with the strange sensation.

“You… what are you worried about, Mycroft?”

 

The elder Holmes, shifting in the slightest way, a motion of discomfort, sighed. One hand finally came free from its resting upon his umbrella, only to pinch at the bridge of his nose. The action looked pained.

“I am worried that Sherlock is making the same mistake he made over a decade ago.”

 

Those eyes, sweeping over John’s frame. Mycroft’s voice was quiet. “Do you know of Sherlock’s past? His past… relationships?” The word relationship sounded like too kind of a phrase. _Abusers_ was a more likely word.

 

“I know of Wilkes.” He began cautiously, but Mycroft was already shaking his head. His voice was dismissive.

 

“No, not that moron, although I agree that Sherlock was right in telling you of him.” Tapping his umbrella gently against the floor, the elder Holmes leaned forward. His eyes were calculating. “I speak of Victor Trevor, John Watson. Has the name ever crossed your conversation before?”

 

John couldn’t say that it had, and before he knew it he was shaking his head in negativity. Mycroft smiled, the expression not happy, but rather somehow sad. His voice was resigned, as if he had known the answer to his question even before asking it.

“That would be because my brother never speaks of that particular acquaintance, or of how he worries that you too will end up like Victor.”

 

John’s lips, suddenly dry and cracked, were licked with a nervous dart of his tongue. His brow lowered in confusion.

“What… do you mean, Mycroft?”

 

The elder Holmes smirked. Just ever so slightly.

“I speak of the events that lead to Victor Trevor’s death, and Sherlock’s subsequent deliberate attempt to overdose. The first time.” John felt a coldness run through his veins, heavy like lead. Yet Mycroft wasn’t finished, pressing forward. Adding as an afterthought

“It would be the events that would ultimately, lead Sherlock to finding Gregory Lestrade.”

 

****

After punching Mycroft,  Sherlock had ran. His shoes pounding hard on the pavement, nearly slipping from the night’s rain. His breath streaming cold in the winter air. Great, heaving gasps broke from his lips, trembling in clouds before his face and obstructing his vision almost as much as the damning wetness collecting in his eyes. Hot and burning, the tears soaked into his sleeve, pressed to his face.

 

It hadn’t been any surprise that night really, ending up at Sebastian’s.

After all, without Victor, Sherlock didn’t exactly have very many places to go. That night, lying on his back in the bathroom with the sting of freshly-made cuts on his legs and a singing high in his veins, Sherlock closed his eyes for the first time and imagined what it might be like to not exist.

 

He thought to himself it’d be peaceful, if only for a moment he could not worry about blinking, about breathing.

Breathing was boring.

 

He laughed to himself, in the shadowy corner of that bathroom. He refused to believe it sounded hysterical and damnedly high in his ears.

 

Eventually however the sun began its inexorable crawl back into the sky, dragging itself up from the black pit of night that had engulfed it. Similarly, hungover but still very much alive, Sherlock found himself rising from his complete and utter despair, a tentatively fragile kind of confidence blooming in its place that could only come from the realisation that he just. didn’t. care.

 

With that lack of care, came a kind of ethereal, heated adrenaline. A sort of shimmering faith in himself. It was such an odd kind of feeling, that the detective couldn’t really place it. He settled for an optimistic hope that things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

 

In truth, he was only partially correct. Eventually righting himself enough to look presentable took effort, and Sherlock quickly did the best he could by shrugging back on his trousers and running cold water over his face and neck. There was still a flush to his cheeks, the last dregs of a legendary high, but there was little to be done in the face of his new determination to get by on his own. Fuck Mycroft, fuck Victor Trevor, he was a Holmes in the end. Holmes men got things sorted, and Sherlock could think of exactly one thing that might sort out his debts, his expenses, and his addictions.

He needed a _puzzle_.

 

Something to _solve_ , something to keep him interested in the world. Something to stop the gnawing ache that he was steadfastly ignoring, pulsing dully in his chest.

He needed a distraction.

 

He had no binder with him, having left his flat in a hurry. Sherlock did not even have a real coat on him.

 

Sebastian checked upon him to find the young man binding his breasts with ace bandages, Sherlock staring at his own reflection as if for the first time, he were seeing something real.

 

The lanky youth sneered, chesire grin curling up at the corners. His voice was sharp and commanding.

“An’ just where do you think you’re going, Holmes? You haven’t paid me yet for that last batch.”

 

Once upon a time, Sherlock might have flinched. Yet a cold calm had settled upon him somewhere during the night, perhaps the aftershock of losing everyone he had cared about. Sherlock Holmes set his jaw, his hands curling into fists at his side. He found his voice steady and menacing as he turned, shirtless, for all the world Daniel facing down a Goliath.

Something uncertain flickered for a moment in Sebastian’s golden eyes at the sight.

 

_“Move.”_

 

The darkly-curled teen’s voice was menacing, bordering on completely unmerciful. Sebastian however did not seem to hear its edge, eyebrows rising in indignation as he stood from his leaning on the doorjamb. At his full height, he still did not reach Sherlock’s towering slenderness.

 

As a child, Sherlock had thought that the one thing luck had given him was a man’s height in a woman’s body.

 

He thanked it once again now.

 

“Why should I?” Wilkes questioned, his arms crossed over his chest, annoyance etched in his features. That once-handsome grin twitched across his features again, but to Sherlock, it had only become repulsive.

“You _owe_ me, Sig. We have an agreement, and it’s up to you to keep your end of the bargain. Come on, girl.”

 

He said it like it was final, as if there was no room for argument. Sherlock’s jaw clenched, and his voice drawled sarcastically even as he took a step forward. Sebastian unconsciously retreated a step in mirroring action, putting space between what himself and what his hindbrain at least was recognizing as a coiled viper.

“Believe me.” Sherlock enunciated his words carefully, pale gaze unreadable and yet cold as stone. His hands were still fists, curled at his sides. Trembling.

“You _really_ don’t want your dick anywhere near my teeth at the moment.”

 

Then, before Sebastian could reply, the teen swung, quick as lightning.

 

If the neighbours saw Sebastian Wilked being flung from the second-story window of the young man’s flat, well… He was never exactly well liked in the neighbourhood to begin with.

 

****

 

“Sherlock went off the radar for _years_ , John.” Mycroft explained, twisting the handle of his umbrella between his fingers as if it might hold all the world’s answers in its polished form.

“I looked for him of course, as did Victor, but neither of us could find him. I had much less resources at my disposal at the time, to be fair. My brother immersed himself in the homeless culture of London, and I didn’t find him for quite some time. By the time I had, he’d acquired testosterone by illegal means, yet not managed to kick his cocaine habit. It took Victor’s untimely death to even bring the man out of the woodwork, he had become so much like the waifs and rats that dwell in London’s underbelly. I barely recognised the man when he came to me. My brother... it changed him. Everything.”

 

John listened to the story, feeling a tight sadness squeeze in his chest. His voice was hushed.

“But… in what way did Sherlock meeting Victor become a bad thing then? I mean, it brought him out, in the end…”

 

As cruel as celebrating a stranger’s death was, in retrospect, John couldn’t really afford to care. When it came down to it, the army doctor was very much aware of Sherlock’s penchant and talent for disguises. There would have been a very real possibility of the detective never coming out ever again, and John could not imagine a world in which Sherlock Holmes was not a name that was known and revered (if not at least respected) in London.

 

Mycroft’s pale eyes looked at the army doctor steadily, his voice giving way to no emotion. His gaze however was piercing in its intensity.

“It became a bad thing, Doctor Watson, as Victor didn’t simply die. He was murdered, and Sherlock heard of the case.”

 

Something cold shot through John then, like being doused in ice water. He felt his hands curl into the armrests of his chair, hard. Before them, tea lay untouched, John having eventually forgiven the older Holmes in the middle of his conversation. It now sat forgotten.

 

Mycroft sighed through his teeth, and it was a long and heavy thing. So tired.

“My brother showed up to the crime scene, high as a kite and demanding to see his friend. It was also there he happened to meet Gregory Lestrade.”

Mouth a tight line, the elder Holmes finished the horrified picture John was drawing in his mind.

“He witnessed them pulling the body out from the alley, as Victor was shot. Nine times, with a semi-automatic. He saw his once best and frankly, only, friend being lifted away like he was little more than a sack of potatoes. Victor didn’t have many relatives to begin with, and none that were currently in the country. John, sentiment lead Sherlock to reveal himself, but it _scarred_ him. Possibly irreparably.”

 

“Sentiment is a chemical defect of the losing side.” John murmured quietly through lips that felt stiff. His mind was reeling. Much of Sherlock’s seemingly inexplicable behaviours, the shutting people out, the nasty habit of his of deducing potential companions to shreds, it was all beginning to come together. Yet the more John saw, the less he _wished_ he knew.

For the more the army doctor found out, the more he found it a miracle at all that Sherlock decided to try and trust again.


	9. Shyla

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly fluffiness. I just finished two very difficult exams and needed a break ^_^ enjoy~ Please keep in mind that Sherlock/Shyla's actions are not a reflection of how all trans people might react in this situation, and that some things that they are comfortable with others might not be :3

 

 

_“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne, The Wanderess_

 

Two days after John had his discussion with Mycroft, Sherlock woke upon the sofa and immediately recognised that something was off. It was something in the way he woke, how as he opened his eyes there was an instinctive pull in the back of his mind, an itching that promised not to sit properly within himself. It was then that Sherlock realised, that the itching was a sensation he was used to, but rather reversed. That was the tricky thing with not falling completely into the male spectrum, the detective thought even as they stood, clutching their robe about them and peering into the mirror critically. Sometimes, very rarely, once in a long, long while, _“Girl days”_ came out to play. Tedious. 

 

Shyla looked at themselves in their reflection, taking in the short cropped curls and pale grey eyes that seemed nearly colourless in the bathroom light. The sharp ridge of their cheekbones were prominent, more so than they would have been if she hadn’t been suffering lately under the weight of her own private moments of self-doubt. Though the results could have been much worse, truthfully, if John hadn’t been involved. The thought sent a lingering pang of annoyance through the detective, her lips turning downwards in a small frown. Her reflection stared back at her, for once angles and lines that did not seem too feminine. The detective turned and drew her robe closer about herself, searching instinctively for her companion.

 

As it turned out, John was already awake, immersing himself in what could only be described as the hell that was editing his blog. Shyla stepped lightly into the living room to find the ex-army doctor seated in his chair, tongue stuck out in concentration as John did his chicken-tap tying, one key painfully at a time. The sight of it momentarily cut the detective’s uneasy mood short, a small smile coming to her face unbidden. John at times was so unassuming, so small and, well, adorable in his own dependable way. It was easy to forget sometimes that the man was in many ways just as much of a shut-in as Sherlock, not to mention the fact that the good doctor had extensive military training. Languidly, Shyla flounced forward, falling onto the sofa in the characteristically lazy manner to which she was accustomed. John noticed her out of the corner of his eye, humming a greeting.

“Morning, love.”

 

Shyla didn’t reply, still rather taken aback by the casual terms of endearment that John so often used upon her. Each time one was spoken, she could swear she felt a small bundle of heat coil itself more tightly in the depths of her internal organs. He was so... different, from Sebastian. So different than any of her past lovers had ever been. It caught the detective unawares at times, like an arrow to the soft chink in the armour she so habitually wore. Apparently not expecting some kind of response, John continued working a moment longer, before finally seeming satisfied with whatever results he achieved. Leaning back and clucking his tongue in triumph, John finally turned to his partner, a warm smile lighting his features even as he set his laptop aside to walk over to where Shyla’s head lay. Standing over her, John ran gentle fingers through the detective’s hair. The sensation was warm and scratchy, and she leaned into it with a small hum of pleasure lodging itself in the back of her throat.

 

“In a good mood then?” John chuckled in response to the sound, drifting to touch the back of Shyla’s neck. His fingers were warm, and the detective drank in the touch like a greedy plant seeking water. “Normally you’re tetchy without a good crime.”

No. It was really better, today at least that there was no crime. Shyla didn’t take cases when she felt female. It was easier, that way. Though a good murder stirred excitement along her bones, enough that a familiar pang of longing coursed through her. But, no. Though Lestrade was aware that she had transitioned, the D.I was largely oblivious to the other half of Sherlock, the female side that rarely showed but sometimes appeared like an ill-timed winter. It was better that way, guaranteed that Sherlock’s pronouns were used correctly when he was, well… He. It made sure that no one would voice things like they had back in uni, hissed words of _Make up your mind_ and _Are you sure Shyla? Maybe you aren’t a boy after all…_

Tedious, such dealings. Much better to stay home, especially with John’s attention all to herself. Shyla could have purred, feeling a familiar sweet ache along her skin that was for once not hampered by the crippling sensation of being trapped in the wrong body.

That was one beautiful aspect of _“Girl Days":_

No gender dysphoria.

 

Sensing the heat in his partner’s gaze, John’s blue eyes darkened ever so slightly. His brows furrowed, before comprehension dawned and the man licked his lips, tentatively taking a stab in the dark. It was something in the way his partner was looking at him, or perhaps the pale column of her neck. Though he was relatively slow at times, John was beginning to recognise when _Sherlock_ was _Shyla_ , even without makeup. The thought sent the same warm fluttery feeling through the detective from before. 

“You’re beautiful like that, do you know?” John murmured, eyes trailing appreciatively down his partner’s lithe form. Dressing gown, an old tatty shirt and pyjama bottoms, yet he could make out under the clothes the subtle line of hard muscle, gained by traipsing through London at all hours of the night. There was an elegance in the way she lay, utterly exposed and yet artfully splayed like a cat displaying its belly for a petting. Unable to tear his gaze away from those plush lips, John found himself bending downwards, capturing the detective’s mouth in his own. Shyla arched into the contact, feeling strangely brave despite the fluttering of her heartbeat inside her ribs. Last time, she hadn’t been able to push past it, the wall that Sebastian had built in her psyche combined with the daunting feat of overcoming the wrongness felt in her body. Now, however there was only the first aspect to deal with, and with the growing weeks and months in which she touched John, trusted him, felt him the fear had begun to slow, dwindling to a trickle that would likely stay but be manageable. Sweeping her tongue tentatively over the seam of John’s lips, Shyla let out the smallest of moans, eyes fluttering shut even as John pushed forward, pressing hard kisses along her jawline and down the pale expanse of her throat. Shyla let him, gasping aloud when John’s soft lips parted way for teeth, sucking a bruise that made the detective want to squirm and her toes to curl.

 

She felt him break away only when the mark was the satisfying shade of red wine, John taking in a deep breath of air as if to steady himself above her. He was still standing, but likely wouldn’t be for much longer. At least, not so long as she had her way. Shyla could feel an ache deep inside of her that normally she ignored, and it throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Or perhaps it was just the rhythm of John’s fingers, pressing lightly against the bruise so that the detective could feel it.

Lying there dazed for but a moment, Shyla suddenly felt as if she were rather horrifically underdressed- and that was a new sensation when sex was on the table. She hadn’t shaved her legs in months, or her underarms for that matter. No make-up to speak of, or pretty underwear. The thought sent a feeling of mild mortification through her, though not the kind that came when feeling out of place with one’s gender identity. It was more the kind of humiliation most women tended to feel when they were not particularly put together, and with Shyla it was made worse by the fact that this was John and John _deserved_ the best especially during their first _time_ and-

 

Breaking away from John, Shyla sat up so quickly that she very nearly overbalanced, arms spreading out on either side of her before her gangly legs caught up. Like a cat targeting a mouse, the detective was now determined, a set goal in mind. Whirling upon John, she crushed her lips to her companion’s own, a manic kind of energy filling her as breathlessly she murmured “Give me an hour.” Before tearing off down towards her room, leaving behind a rather confused, and terribly turned on, John Watson. The army doctor listened to the thrum of his own heartbeat, feeling as exhilarated as he did when he was after the detective for chasing down seasoned killers.

Somehow, he thought to himself that the comparison was likely just a bit not good.

 

****

She _knew_ she had it somewhere, hidden away in the back of her wardrobe. She knelt in front of it, surrounded by splayed fabrics, torn from her drawers in haste. It was well hidden though, buried under stacks of button-up shirts and crisp suits. Shyla let out a low curse as her hunt at first turned up futile, only serving to aggravate her increasingly short temper. Finally, after rooting through a half-dozen pairs of trousers, the detective found the average, polished wooden box that held the treasures she was searching for. Shyla heaved a breath of intense satisfaction hooking her fingers under it and lifting, grunting at its unexpected weight. It had been a while since she’d felt the need for all of this- and as such Shyla was unsurprised by the small cloud of dust that settled on her robe with the box’s movement.

 

Sitting on the hardwood floor, the detective ran her fingers over the box’s surface, the name Sherlock temporarily falling to ash in her own mouth even as she opened the lid. It clicked softly, revealing its contents to be an eclectic collection of trappings. A woman’s razor sat bright pink upon folded layers of a soft black dress, flowy and long. It was covering a silk-soft leather jacket that Shyla knew would only reach her midriff, perfect for covering one’s shoulders but not shrouding her. They were familiar pieces of fabric, and she set them out with gentle reverence. Underneath them, a small black makeup bag sat innocently, its contents likely past its due date but functional enough for Shyla’s purposes. Gathering everything to her, the detective closed her eyes briefly, drawing into herself. Familiar self doubts crept in, familiar words from other people’s sharp-edged judgements briefly clouding her mind.

For just a moment, she hesitated, caught between wanting to feel _right_ and wanting to look  _good_.

Then, Shyla remembered John’s affectionate _“Love.”_

 

Somehow, the detective found it easier then, to move.

 

****

John was almost sure he had bollocksed something up somewhere when he heard the shower running. The ex-army doctor found the familiar, sinking sensation of guilt and helplessness fill him, something that was not unfamiliar but definitely unwelcome these past few months. Ever since opening the proverbial pandora’s box on his lover’s past, it seemed that he couldn’t much stop those feelings from building within him. They occasionally made way into anger, and it was something that made John want to grit his teeth and clench his fists in equal measure. It was unfair of him, to feel as though Shyla wasn’t trying hard enough. Sherlock, Shyla, both sides of the detective had spent most of their lives trying, had adapted to their own gender identity and carved out a life for themselves, one that they were graciously allowing John into. When it came down to it, the ex-army doctor couldn’t even say he was angry, more like he was pained. After his conversation with the elder Holmes, the _last_ thing John wanted to do was make his partner feel uncomfortable in intimacy.

 

This thought train was cut off rather abruptly with the opening of the shower door, Shyla’s bare feet muffled by a covering of tights. John heard the soft susurrus of fabric before he saw the detective, but when he did he felt his mouth run dry at the sight as he turned to face her. She at first stepped forward rather like she were walking towards her executioner, uncharacteristic hesitance lining her features and her shoulders curled forward, before her gaze smoothed into her normal aloof expression. Yet John found himself not quite focusing on her face, though Shyla’s lips were painted a deep and provocative crimson with eyeliner making her eyes appear piercingly blue. No, John was focused instead on the sheer black blouse that draped over the detective’s frame, golden buttons glinting like lanterns in blackest swathe of night. It just covered the darker silhouette of the lacey black bra that lay underneath, and was tucked into a midi skirt that was the same wine red as Shyla’s lips. Dark stockings made legs already long even longer, so that John found his eyes unintentionally travelling the whole length of the mad genius, his tongue darting out to lick his lips in a thoughtful daze.

 

That rumbling, low voice broke him from his trance like a crackle of thunder.

“Is this… okay?” Shyla’s tone was hopeful, small. Violinist’s fingers ran hesitantly over the line of her skirt’s edge, a self-conscious check that made something warm bubble up in John’s stomach. When he spoke, it was a rough rasp that made Shyla’s eyes widen fractionally in surprise.

“God, yeah. C’mere, you gorgeous thing.”

Shyla couldn’t seem to move across the room quickly enough.

 

John’s breath was sweet, and he wasted no time in planting open-mouthed kisses along the edge of Shyla’s jaw, down the column on her neck. He didn’t stop there, falling to his knees rapidly and pressing his lover up against the wall. Shyla felt her breath quicken at the sight, eyes huge and heat humming in her belly. John peered up at her through the fan of his lashes, a small smile quirking his lips even as his thumbs pressed gentle circles into her hips. The sight made the detective bite down on her lip and shiver, a pretty flush crawling across her cheeks. For just a second, she forgot the fact that just a moment ago she had been self-conscious about her choice in clothes. John for his part liked the warmth in his lover’s gaze, and he liked more the small squeak of surprise and delight as he ran his nose along the noticeable bulge greeting him. The ex-army doctor’s hands were warm as they slowly hiked Shyla’s skirt upwards, revealing a sight that made John hiss as lust coursed through him.

 

The line of black stockings against snow-white skin was intoxicating to look at, and the sight was only made all the sweeter by the dark lace panties cupping Shyla’s arse. There was a rapidly-spreading damp patch along the front of them, and the detective couldn’t help the tremulous moan that reached her lips as John pressed forward, the warmth of his tongue causing Shyla to curl forward, fingers reaching instinctively to twine in the short blonde strands of her lover’s hair.

“oh, _John…_ ”

John thought that there wasn’t a prettier sound than the needy timbre of Shyla’s voice, that was until he hooked his fingers into the band of the panties and shrugged them down, licking a hot stripe against Shyla’s clit. Normally, Shyla was a bit hesitant about partners seeing her parts. Testosterone was not gentle in its results, and normally Sherlock was more than happy with the tiny dick that had grown with his beard and the rumble of his voice. Now, however, Shyla bit her lip, unsure if John would react well. The detective barely managed to stay upright when her companion barely hesitated, leaning forward to taste, his hands curling about her hips.

Several hours later, neither one of them were truly surprised to find themselves slouched into Shyla's bed, ignoring the world by using a covering of tangled limbs and blankets. It wasn't a day to go outside, not when Sherlock was fascinated by tracing the marbled patchwork of John's scar, and not when John was too absorbed watching his lover as she committed his skin to her memory. 

****

 

Lestrade frowned as his phone once again rang to voicemail, bracing his elbows against his desk with a sigh. Normally, the detective inspector couldn’t get rid of Sherlock, usually when the last thing he wanted was for him to be down at the yard. A puzzle he couldn’t solve despite the fact that he’d be working on it for weeks- and the bloody madman couldn’t be arsed to answer his _damn_ phone!

Growling in frustration, Greg finally set the offensive mobile down, running frustrated fingers through his hair. The lingering weight of half a dozen fitful nights weighed on him heavily, causing an ache along his spine and a pressure headache in the front of his skull.

He’d call go to the flat tomorrow, he resolved, if Sherlock didn’t answer by this evening. Mrs Hudson would let him in if John wasn’t around. His resolve hardened, the D.I turned to the last of his papers for the night.

  



	10. White Crayons and Black Paper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> usual trigger warnings ^.^ enjoy as we meet Arthur Holmes.

 

 

_It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons. ~Johann Schiller_

 

It was lying in the dark, protective shelter of blankets that John Watson looked at his partner, the detective curled into the shell of the army doctor’s body like they were made to slide there. Like two puzzle pieces, effortlessly nudged side by side. Shyla- or Sherlock (John supposed he wouldn’t know which would wake up with him come the morning) slept solidly once down, the fan of their lashes fluttering with the beginnings of REM sleep, long and spidery hands occasionally twitching in response to some unseen stimuli. Both of them were naked, the detective a canvas of pale skin, now marked here and there with love-bites and the scent of sex still hanging in the air. Their eyes still had smudges of the evening’s mascara on them, and the red of their lip still shone deep and plump, making John want to do nothing more than press his own lips to them again and again. Asleep like this, John found the detective looked so much more vulnerable, shedding their usual armour of the day away to reveal instead a kind of delicate nature.

 

There was something fragile to their features, in those high cheekbones and pale skin, yet John knew the muscles lining the detective’s abdomen, his arms. Coupled with scars both self-inflicted and received, Sherlock when wearing his coat could make a menacing figure. Shyla too, with her height and the mercurial glint in her eye. Both of them John found he loved fiercely, and part of him wondered how anyone could look at them and see something ugly instead of beautiful. He loved them so much it felt like his heart was aching some days, and though the detective seemed convinced that the life they were living now was sustainable, John wondered at times if Sherlock was happy. The army doctor wondered if somewhere on their quest for said happiness, if the detective had lost their way. For people were cruel, and John was no fool. He knew why no cases were taken earlier in the day, and it wasn’t because of his marvellous skills in bed (though a part of him did puff up a bit in pride that Shyla wanted him, had let herself be with him). No, it was because as beautiful as John found Shyla, found Sherlock, he knew already that only one side of the detective existed to the general public.

 

In the quest to get the gender that Sherlock most often recognised in themselves noticed, they had traded their freedom to be female. Though it didn’t seem to bother Shyla much (As it was as far as John could tell normally only for a day or two with long gaps between when she felt female) it bothered _John_. Rather, it irked him because he _knew_ why his partner did it, understood.  Sherlock had worked _so hard_ just to be seen as, well, _Sherlock._ Any credibility he had would be put into question if he just switched to she, people were so cruel, so blind sometimes...Most of the Yard hated Sherlock Holmes to begin with. If it became common knowledge that Sherlock was once Shyla… was _still_ sometimes a woman…He could imagine Anderson's delight, Sally's scorn. 

 

John closed his eyes, the vivid reminder of the case with the serial killings. The one where Sherlock had very nearly (So willingly) given themselves away for John. His arms wrapped themselves more tightly about the detective, causing a sleepy snuffle to come from his partner’s lips. The ex-army doctor pressed a kiss to those dark curls, soothing away their sleepy question, closing his eyes. It wasn’t _fair._

But it was _necessary._

 _That,_ John thought, was perhaps what he _hated_ the most of it. He fell back to sleep with that thought, eyes closing to the grey of very early morning.

 

****

Sherlock was sixteen when he first tried to bind, and half unsure why they even tried to do it in the first place. It had started with sport’s bras, too many sizes too tight, leaving them feeling breathless and lightheaded. Then when that didn’t seem effective enough, bandages. The teen had known the damage their binding methods could cause, but truthfully on that day couldn’t bring themselves to much care.

 

Not that day. Not when they felt the need to pick at the inside of their wrists and their face, picking and peeling and rubbing until the inside of their arms were bright red and acne littered their cheeks and chin. It was ugly, but somehow Sherlock couldn’t stop. They didn’t know why they did it, only that it hurt. Only that Mummy when they caught them doing it would hiss at them to stop.

 

Father didn’t much notice one way or the other. Sherlock was sixteen when the estranged man showed up into their life, quiet and kind and yet so very _oblivious_ to the coldness that greeted him. To the darkly-curled teen, he was the equivalent of a white crayon. Soft and subdued and _useless_ to everyone, unless dealing with darkness. He was _nothing_ like Mummy, and when he came to the door, Sherlock found there was very little he saw of himself in the man. It was disappointing, at first. Arthur Holmes at a glance, was _ordinary._

 

Still, Mummy had insisted on Sherlock getting to know the man, and it was how he found himself out in the garden, sitting on one end of the swing in the back and tugging nervously at his skirts. They were the colour of the grass, an attempt on his mother’s part to make them more appealing to them. Beside him, Sherlock watched his father calmly smoke a pipe, watery blue eyes cast out towards the garden in gentle contemplation. It was a while before either of them spoke.

 

“There used to be lilies here.” Sherlock’s father finally commented after a breath of a pause, using his pipe to gesture to the blackened flowerbed. Sherlock looked towards it, hands folded in their lap. _Picking, picking, picking._

“Experiment. Accidentally poured the refuse of it on the flowerbeds.” Not a complete lie, he hadn’t meant to pour them on the lilies. His original plan had been to dump it on Mummy’s roses before he’d tripped. Sherlock was surprised to hear a warm chuckle in response, his Father grinning. It lit up the entirety of his face, and for a moment, Sherlock saw a hint of his own features, hidden in there. Arthur’s tone wasn’t angry.

“I planted them a long time ago, when we first moved in. Your mother never much liked them, but I always loved the smell in the spring. Mycroft was just a baby, he used to try to eat the petals.”

 

The idea of his elder brother ever being that little made Sherlock’s nose wrinkle in vague disgust. His brother and the word little often didn’t go hand in hand. To Sherlock, Mycroft was a symbol of opulence. Indulgence. _Monotony._

“I don’t much like flowers.” Sherlock responded flatly, testing their breathing through the binding. Their ribs felt as though they were creaking. It hurt. Arther Holmes hummed around the handle of his pipe, nodding as if to himself. He leaned back on the swing.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I have a lot of catching up to do, I suppose.”

Neither of them added onto that comment, the only sound Sherlock peeling apart the skin between forefinger and thumb. When it was obvious the youngest Holmes wasn’t going to reply, Arthur carried on. “Your mother tells me you’re clever, a bright young girl. I can see that. You like experiments? What kind?”

_Girl._

“Chemistry.” Sherlock murmured, ignoring the insidious whisper inside of his own mind. It wasn’t his Father’s fault, he didn’t know. It still didn’t stop the twisting feeling inside of his stomach.

“See, that’s your mum through and through. I’m afraid I’m not brilliant like you, I’m rather very _ordinary_.” Smoke trailed from his pipe as Mr Holmes sucked at it, blowing it outwards. His eyes were kind. “She always was brilliant, Violet was. Probably right proud to have a daughter to carry on the women’s line.” Sherlock’s hands tightened in his lap, and he bit his lip. The bow of his spine curled forward. It was without thinking, instinctive what he did next.

 

“She doesn’t. I’m… I’m _not._ ” The teen sucked in a breath then, surprised by how the statement of that seemed to loosen the tightness in their chest. It was the first time they'd admitted it aloud, even to themselves that they were _not_ Shyla. it felt so _good_ , just saying it. Like a valve being loosened to let healing water in. Sherlock’s eyes slipped closed, preparing for questions and yet heart oddly calm. Everything was at once filled with panic and peace. It was a long stretch of quiet, and then the sound of Arthur slowly tapping out the ashes of his pipe onto the side of the swing. His voice was gentle, so gentle it made Sherlock want to shake.

“My sister… your aunt. She was a wonderful girl. Not overly brilliant either, but friendly. Kind and compassionate.” Hesitantly, Sherlock opened his eyes. His father wasn’t looking at him though, instead staring at his own hands in thought. His voice was quiet. “When your mother and I started dating, she told me that Violet was _“beautiful on the outside, but to be careful with what lay behind all that brilliance”_. Your mother’s a flame, and it burns so brightly, it _consumes_ everything. I didn’t know what she meant. I was a kid, really.” He laughed, but the sound of it was not happy. “I let your mother burn me out, and in the process, she took my two beautiful sons with her. Both of them had flames too, in different ways.”

 

Sherlock watched as Arthur turned to look at him then, his blue eyes steady, strong.

“You have your mother’s flame, but I’m pleased to say admittedly, my sister’s kindness, lurking in you. Something of her nature.” His hands reached out then, tipping Sherlock’s chin upwards so the light caught in the teen’s eyes, held it. Arthur smiled. “Don’t let your mother kill that kindness, no matter who you turn out to want to be in the future. Your mother forgets often now- what it’s like to feel _different_.” Sherlock found the image of his father blurring before his eyes, marred by the tears burning in the back of his throat. His hands lay in his lap, for once mercifully still.

 

Arthur’s fingers ran through his child’s dark curls, and if Sherlock leaned a bit more closely to his Father’s side, well no one was around to see the moment of weakness.

 

Years later, Arthur’s memory would visit Sherlock again in a dream, this time waking up to John’s warm arms, and a feeling of safety echoing in the hug both given to him years before, and in that instant.

 

That feeling however melted away by the opening of a door below, and a familiar voice calling up to the detective. Lestrade. Sherlock looked at his own naked form, head jerking up towards the mirror where the remnants of lipstick and eyeshadow still marred his face. There was also the very real issue of him having been in John's  _bed._

_Fuck._

 

****

Lestrade hadn’t gotten an answer at the door when he’d shown up that morning, and assumed that Sherlock and John had finally crashed and gotten to sleep. With Mrs Hudson’s cheery blessing, the D.I took to the stairs, entering _221 B_ with an armful of files and the expectation of seeing the detective crashed out on the couch, or John making breakfast.

 

Instead, he found an empty lower floor, devoid of life and looking as if it had been abandoned in a hurry. Stacks of old cases were toppled over, and the couch lay barren and neglected. Lestrade frowned, hearing a muffled thump from upstairs. It was odd that neither Sherlock or John were on the first floor, but then again, the D.I admitted to himself that the detective did have a habit of crashing literally anywhere he felt like. It would not have surprised Greg to discover John had given up his bed for the man, choosing instead to sleep in the armchair on the other side of his room. Lestrade called out again for the detective and companion, even as he mounted the first step.

 

“ _Oi!_ Anyone home?”

A muffled curse, the sound of someone stubbing their toe on the door out of the room, Lestrade caught the end of a blue silk robe before it disappeared abruptly. Sherlock’s voice was gruff, calculatingly dismissive. Lestrade did not buy it for an instant.

“Greg. Bit early isn’t it? Is that a new case for me? Better not be boring like the last one. I'll be with you in a minute.”

 

The D.I quietly moved forward, finding Sherlock silhouetted by a hallway mirror. The detective’s face was turned artfully away, and though Greg couldn’t see much, he could tell that the detective was rubbing something off of his lips, his eyes and cheeks. Lestrade’s eyes narrowed upon the tissue, seeing the faintest wine-coloured lipstick even as incredulously he found himself asking “Are...are you wearing _makeup?”_

Sherlock jumped. Actually jumped like he hadn’t been aware the D.I had been so close by. The detective’s blue eyes flicked to Greg instinctively, and the facade of the calm and collected genius for an instant crumbled into panic, blank and intense.

Sherlock was wearing mascara. He had the smudged remnants of lip-liner around his mouth. His hair looked as though it had been tastefully tussled instead of just combed. Greg blinked, wondering if he was dreaming.

  
Things however only got weirder as another thumping noise sounded, John sleepily calling out “Love… you there?” The ex-army doctor came out in nothing but a pair of pants, blonde hair sticking up in all directions. He stopped abruptly upon seeing Lestrade, hand halfway to his mouth to cover a yawn. The tension in the room felt as though it could be cut with a knife. No one dared to move.


	11. Purple Is The Colour of Nailpolish and Bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for misgendering, drug use and overdose, and all the usual triggers in this chapter. After this the next chapter will likely be about Mycroft and Sherlock's relationship and how it's evolved over his life. ^_^ enjoy

 

_A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.~ Elbert Hubbard_

 

Greg’s first serious case had been a drugs bust, and like any cop who had been up until said point doing little else but handing out parking tickets and directing traffic, he had been all but chomping on the bit to get some actual action into his career. When he looked back at himself then, a bright young thing in some ways entirely still too naive about the cruelty of other human beings, Greg privately admitted only to himself that he felt something akin to embarrassment. His younger self had been filled with imaginings of solving the impossible cases, of going above and beyond the call of duty. He pictured himself a superman amongst mortals, something that in the force could get you killed if you kept it beyond your beginning years.

Thankfully, five years of seeing the worst of London beat that eagerness for glory out of him.

 

It was raining the night that he had been called in for a drugs bust that would introduce him to Sherlock Holmes. It would be a night that Lestrade wouldn’t easily forget, if only because it was December and he had been called in over his supposed Christmas holidays to handle the case. It would be the beginning of a chink between the bond he shared with his wife. Lestrade had stood outside the abandoned building with his hands deep in his pockets and his back braced against the chill droplets of rain, his coat doing little to shelter him from the downpour. The blue lights of his police car had been smeared beacons in the darkness, alighting the faces of his team as they prepared to barge their way into the string of flats before them.

 

Lestrade had expected to see the painfully thin figures stretched out on filthy mattresses and leaning against walls. He had expected their wide-eyed stares, peering out from filthy fringes as their impaired minds struggled to comprehend the police filtering their way in, hauling people away. He had always likened their eyes as those of an owl’s, too big for their gaunt faces and altogether too uncomprehending. Lestrade had expected all of this, and to be fair he wasn’t wrong. The majority of the people his team brought in that night were too high to run, and those that did were met with the rest of the police force outside. It all in all had been a fairly standard bust, and Lestrade’s mind had already been preoccupied with wanting to go home, wanting to escape the leaking roofs and shaking hands that surrounded him.

 

He was so distracted he very nearly tripped on a shadow, curled up against the wall to his left. Greg barely resisted the urge to yelp as a spidery, thin hand shot out from a mass of dark blankets and rags, gripping his ankle in a vice. A voice, low and sonorous and distinctly male clipped out words that were fast-paced, manic and astounding.

“Your head of forensics is stealing opiates and pocketing them on the side. Not that he’ll find many of them here, in a heroin and crack den.” It was the accent that caught Lestrade’s attention, polished and crisp where most of the people he brought in had the rounded edges of the lower class. His eyebrows rose as the bundle of rags shifted, revealing under a mass of greasy, raven curls a pair of eyes that had pupils blown but were still very startlingly aware. It was a kid, or what Lestrade would have considered to be a kid. Really, it was a young adult. The man’s sallow complexion and obvious starvation made judging his age hard to tell, but the D.I could see enough under the rags to tell that they were probably no older than early twenties. A mouth that was chapped and bleeding from sunlight exposure was pursed in annoyance, and nervous hands tapped away on knees that had bones pressing out from the skin like knives.

 

“What are you on about?” Greg wrenched his leg free from the man’s grip even as his mind whirled to James Brennon, head of the forensics. He wasn’t sure why his instinctive thoughts leapt to believe a drug-addict, but quickly enough reality crashed down on him enough that he shook his head in denial. “You’re out of your tree. Not to mention high as a kite. You’re going to have to come with us.” He knelt then, making as if to help the kid up onto his feet. However the young man scowled, curling away from Lestrade’s hands and making himself smaller up against the wall. There was a crafty gleam in those pale eyes, and Greg mentally prepared himself to stop the man from doing a runner. He was unprepared for the verbal assault he received instead.

 

“Why do you want to go home? Your wife is thinking about having an affair and it’s not like you care, really. You’re focused on your job completely, too focused to be having anything close to a regular social life. It’s supported by the circles under your eyes- caffeine and sleeplessness don’t go hand in hand well. Even if you wanted to go home- bringing me in will just create more paperwork and endless amounts of tedium.”

 

Greg had been prepared for the sudden lunge to happen, yet he still found himself staggering when the teen launched themselves, trying to duck under his arms and utterly failing. The D.I struggled as the boy all but shrieked like a barn cat that had its tail pulled, snarling out curses even as Greg pinned him to the ground, attempting to reach along his belt loops for his handcuffs. It was just as his left hand brushed cool metal that the boy reared unexpectedly- one last final effort to break free. Unthinking, the D.I had used his right arm to hold him down, hooking it around his chest to press his knee more firmly against the teen’s tailbone.

 

Lestrade’s fingers brushed a chest- bound down but still noticeably curved- before the teen’s teeth had sunken themselves deeply enough into the arm to draw blood.  A yelp sounded, loud enough to alert the other police sergeants to the spectacle. Even back then, Sherlock Holmes had been a right tosser.

 

****

“I won’t go to the women’s cells. You can’t make me.”

 

Greg grit his teeth to keep from snapping at the filthy young man (man? _woman?_ ) that he had no plans of putting one Sherlock  _anywhere_ , his team still caught up in the enormous sea of paperwork, attempting to track down a phone number that could be tied to _“Sherlock Holmes”._ As it turned out, Lestrade’s hunch had been right- Sherlock was only in his early twenties, homeless, and high, but with no actual possession of drugs on him. This provided only small comfort truthfully, as Greg was still nursing a savage-looking wound on his arm, his team fed up with the man’s ( _woman’s?_ ) sharp tongue and caustic attitude approximately three hours ago.

 

 _“Homeless, a junkie and a tranny. Chances are even if the kid does have a family, she has no home to go back to.”_ Benson’s words had been whispered upon passing to Greg, and the D.I found that with each stretch of passing time he both hated the fact that no one had come to claim the half-starved creature, and felt the beginnings of pity welling in his chest. It was this stem of kindness that softened his anger, leading him to respond when everyone else had opted to ignore the captive and go home for Christmas dinner.

 

“Must be rough out on the streets in this cold… Don’t tell me you’re too keen to be out in that rain already?” Blue eyes narrowed and a bowed lip huffed, and Greg fought a small smile as Sherlock reluctantly responded. Their words however sucked whatever joy the D.I found in getting them to react out of it.

“Better than home. Better than here.” The words seemed to have a draining effect on Sherlock, and Greg watched as they slumped slowly against the cell wall, sinking to the floor. With only the D.I still on the job, it seemed that Sherlock’s pride was willing to make way for harsh shivers of withdrawal. Each shake jolted their spine, exposing the harsh lines of their shoulders and their ire towards the world. The sighed, and the sound of it seemed to quake in their very bones, stretch their skin taut over sinewy fragility.

 

Greg’s voice was quiet in the dim light, only speaking after a silence stretched between the two of them that was deep and somehow somewhat binding.

“That thing… with Benson… You didn’t mean it, did you?”

No reply, and Lestrade felt the same prick of annoyance twinge in him. His next words came more harshly, rude perhaps but forceful.

“Is it worth it, at least? Being…A junkie. Probably a thief. Being... Whatever it is you are. Do you feel any kind of pride in... _this?”_ He made a vague gesture towards Sherlock’s body, heat rushing to his ears at the awkwardness and insulting phrasing. Sherlock, deep voiced and male on the outside to most, flicked a look towards Greg that burned with something hateful. His voice was brittle, defeated.

 

“Is it worth getting illegal testosterone to have people look at me like I see myself? Is it worth it, binding my breasts down- sometimes with tape or bandages just so that I’m not assaulted on the streets? You’re asking me if it’s worth it, trying to mend my body so that I do not feel quite so compelled to _starve, cut_  and _destroy_ it? Inspector-” The man broke off, panting seemingly with the effort of his words. Greg couldn’t have spoken, even if he had wanted to. There was a sudden tightness in his chest, a feeling of shame that he couldn’t even hope to quantify. Sherlock’s voice trembled minutely, breaking before falling again to silence. “-if you’re asking me if it’s worth it to survive, then you’re even more of an idiot than I would have thought. No wonder you didn’t even notice the opiates missing from the evidence hauls.” His eyes were hollow, and he curled further into himself as if to hide from the world.

 

Greg watched as Sherlock Holmes stared at his own hands, still coming down from his high, emotional, mercurial, neither here nor there. The D.I didn’t ask anything more, and Sherlock did not deign him worthy enough of further information.

 

No one came for Sherlock Holmes, and unfortunately, Greg found himself releasing the young man, slipping his phone number by way of apology into the addict’s belongings without even really having meant to.

 

It would be nearly three months before Greg would even get a call, and it wouldn’t be from Sherlock. It would be from a random passer-by. It would be a call of distress, as Sherlock was found in an abandoned flat, in a pool of his own vomit and unresponsive, beaten within an inch of his life. Drug overdose, suspected unable to pay for said overdose. Greg wouldn’t even think about abandoning Sherlock while rushing to the hospital.

It would only be when Sherlock was sent to A and E, that Mycroft would finally relocate his baby brother. It would be in the same night that he found him that the elder Holmes would meet Gregory Lestrade, and see what street life and Victor’s untimely death had done to his younger sibling.

 

Greg would catch Benson in the act of lifting opiates from the evidence locker a week later. He would then consider the fact that he was fast coming to rely on a junkie of all people to help out with his job. It would be this thought that would lead to many a night drinking, and many a night considering Sherlock Holmes a tentative friend in time. 

 

****

Getting clean took time, Sherlock did not make a smooth recovery. Like anything else he faced, he was stubborn and obtuse, and only Lestrade’s tentative promise of bringing interesting puzzles and cases to him each month he stayed sober kept the fledgeling detective on the straight and narrow.

 

Sherlock’s relationship with Mycroft… well that was perhaps even bumpier. The elder Holmes had become powerful over the years, taking his “minor” position in the British government quite happily. He had admittedly forgotten what it was like to be challenged and defied at every turn, and Sherlock wasn’t merciful in even the slightest.

“You’re breaking Mummy’s heart living like this, brother mine.” Mycroft often hissed, to which Sherlock would flatly state that it didn’t matter, as he’d already shattered that tie long ago and had no intention of rebuilding it ever again. Greg may not have known either Holmes very long, but he found out quickly that the least likely way to get Sherlock to behave was to mention his mother. Mycroft, for all of his genius, never really quite figured that one out. Instead, the two mended their relationship with string and glue, peace-offerings such as _“I’ll stay clean if you get me hormones.”_  and _“You will not have to attend Christmas dinner if you eat more regularly”_. Neither of them were exactly okay, but their bond would right itself with time. Like a jagged exit wound from a bullet, both Mycroft and Sherlock found themselves with scars and regrets, neither of them able to utter them aloud for fear said wound would reopen and bleed.

 

It was in this way that Lestrade slowly found his wife moving out (their relationship was beginning to become volatile), and the younger Holmes moving in. Greg learned a lot about the transgender community by proxy of simply living with Sherlock Holmes, and not all of it was pleasant tidbits but instead a cold slap to the face towards not only his own ignorance, but the ignorance of others. Sherlock had been clean for just a little over four months before Lestrade had chanced having the man on an actual crime scene with him, and said months of recovery had done the detective more than a world of good. Sherlock was no longer sallow, his skin smooth and unblemished save for scars that would heal with time and care. His fingernails were only stained mildly from nicotine, his curls were clean and cut, and he no longer walked hunched inwards on himself, no longer looked like a man headed for the gallows.

The sight warmed Greg, because until that moment he had rarely seen Sherlock smile. Now he offered the tiniest of upturned mouths towards the D.I, hidden by the time he reached the crime scene and corpse. The detective’s voice rang out across the street, spouting deductions at full throttle, showing off genius casually and confidently with a voice that didn’t shake from spinning highs or crushing lows. Sherlock was happy, at least until one of the forensics team recognised him as the man who aided in benching Benson.

The loud proclamation of _“Who brought the loud-mouthed freak back?”_ Made the hair on the back of Greg’s arms stand on end, and it was only made worse by the shuttering of Sherlock’s expression, his eyes turning flat and distant in a way that was both frighteningly similar and foreign, an expression that hadn’t been used in months.

 

It was without thinking that the D.I made his way over towards the man who spoke, one Chris Haldran. The man didn’t see it coming when Greg invaded his personal space, only that he didn’t have time to prepare before Lestrade had him backed menacingly into a corner between alleyway and wall, a not-so-nice smile playing out on his features as he murmured

“I invited him. And just to be clear, it’s _him._ Sherlock is _male._ He identifies as a _he_ and if I catch _you,_ or _anyone_ for that matter on my team for that matter calling him anything different, well there are _plenty_ of sensitivity training courses down at the Yard I can subject you lot to.”

 

The threat held, and like scared mice the team scattered in both body language and gaze, no one daring Greg to make good on his threat. They knew the D.I well enough by now to know that he would without hesitation. Sherlock watched the entire scene with pale, guarded blue eyes. There was a bemused expression on his face, something drawn to it even when Lestrade came back to him, apologised on behalf of Haldran. Lestrade wouldn’t find out that his claim that Sherlock was completely male, wasn’t strictly true until years later, the words left unspoken on Sherlock’s tongue, too caught up in being defended for a change instead of accused. It didn’t matter that a small part of the detective whispered that Greg was wrong, because most of the time, overwhelmingly, the D.I would have been _right._ Male. Not female.

_Male._

So Sherlock hid Shyla, because if that was the trade-off for feeling like he existed in the D.I’s and the met’s mind, then it wasn’t such a big sacrifice to keep after all.

 

****

John watched as Sherlock looked at Lestrade not with confidence, but something skittish and close to fear. The last remnants of Shyla’s makeup from the night before still lingered on the detective’s face, making blue eyes seem bluer and their trembling lips darker and smudged to hell. Lestrade’s question still hung in the air, tense now that John had appeared and likely due to become more so as Sherlock still hadn’t found their voice, the words to communicate.

They were there, somewhere. Sherlock just couldn’t seem to articulate them, sound them out with his lips. How did one explain the nebulous feeling of fitting into one’s skin one moment and then not fitting into it the next? How did one describe the blurring of identity, of feeling neither here nor there sometimes?

How did one explain lying to preserve what was truth, ninety percent of the time?

 

Lestrade, seeming to sense Sherlock’s fear, flicked his eyes towards John. The obvious coupling between the two honestly didn’t much shock the D.I, but an insidious voice within himself did wonder if the ex-army doctor wasn’t to blame. It didn’t sound like John to force someone to dress a certain way for his own pleasure, but Sherlock was notorious for having a weak spot for his companion, an inability to say no. John dated women, had emphatically stated that he was not gay many times over. Yet Greg also knew that both men had feelings for one another, and that their coupling was about as inevitable as his own eventual divorce from his wife.

 

The thought that John could make Sherlock do something like that… Greg didn’t often feel protective over Sherlock any longer since getting clean, but he admittedly saw red as fury took ahold of him for an instant, mixed with betrayal. It was a peculiar emotion, one where he tasted metal and sour bile and found himself moving towards John with the instinctive craving to fight.

Luckily, it was at that moment that Sherlock’s brain seemed to come back online, and his voice, rough with desperation held Greg back from voicing his building accusations.

 _“Wait,_ Lestrade. It’s not… John has nothing to do with this. He’s not to blame.”

 

Greg’s brows furrowed under his silver hairline, pausing long enough to look at the detective for some kind of explanation. Sherlock took a deep, pained breath, his hands curling inwards on himself. The itch across his skin, a phantom craving to pick at his nail-beds and wrists made him tremble minutely. He mentally cursed his own fear- one would think that years and years of coming out to people multiple times would have made said anxiety diminish. Yet here he was, fumbling over words like he was a child again under his mother’s inquiring gaze.

“Downstairs. There are places we can sit.” Sherlock murmured, looking towards John. He forced himself to keep his head held high, though his expression was soft when he saw the worry etched into his companion’s features. “John. Go take a shower. I’ll explain to Lestrade.” His voice bartered no availability for an argument.

 

The D.I’s face, still swamped with confusion only seemed to darken further.

“Someone please explain something at least, because pretty soon I’m going to believe that I’m in the middle of a very strange dream.”

Sherlock resisted the urge to laugh somewhat hysterically.

_If only._

 

****

The tea was hot, overly sweetened. Greg had forgotten that Sherlock took his like a ten year-old’s, more sugar and milk than tea. Still he drank it politely, turning the cup in his hands as haltingly Sherlock explained his reason for secrecy, his voice hushed and low under the dim sound of the shower pipes running above them. It took time, nearly a half hour actually, and John was just stepping out of the shower-clothed but clean and wet when Sherlock set down his own cup, folding his hands together in his lap. His voice was measured and calm, but his expression was deliberately blank.

“You likely have questions.”

 

Greg was still reeling a little, feeling like he had experienced gender-related whiplash. Yet he had also done this before with the detective, and the familiar echo of one of the man’s favourite sayings caused Lestrade to smile, albeit weakly.

“One question, actually.” He replied, and John came behind Sherlock’s chair, wordlessly bracing himself and the detective for the worst. Instead, kind brown eyes looked to Sherlock, and Greg scrubbed a hand through his hair as he hung his head and asked

“I have a case for you. Looks to be interesting, it’s a locked room murder. Will you come?”

 

Sherlock didn’t smile, but his eyes burned, alight with silent joy hidden under his purposefully composed inquiry of

“Depends. Will your team harass me if I paint my nails?”


	12. Brother Mine, Sister Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's mostly from Mycroft's point of view, and offers some more insight into their somewhat damaged dynamic. Warnings for a lot of misgendering in this chapter.

 

 

 

_Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. ~Vietnamese Proverb_

 

Mycroft’s deepest nightmare was a memory, and it was one that haunted him in the long stretches of the night in which he lay awake in his bed sometimes. Like most everything in his life, it was to do with Sherlock. The image would burn in the back of his eyelids if his brother was having a hard time, was too manic, too wild and savage in his movements, in his actions. It was a cold hospital bed, an ashen figure lying before him, under medicated sleep after having been brought in for an overdose that should have killed him. His greatest nightmare was reliving long nights unknowing if his brother was going to live or die.

On the outside, he would pretend he slept well, go to work and attend meetings and never falter. His assistant was the only one he was held accountable to anymore after all, and even she couldn’t read his most subtle of tells. There was only one person who could ever really do it, and she was a woman with which Mycroft had an admittedly mixed relationship with. Still, she was very much sometimes the only one that could perhaps see Mycroft for who he truly was sometimes, under the outer armour of government official that so easily fooled even Sherlock Holmes.

Violet Holmes in her older age was elegant, all soft lines and white fabrics. She sat across from him in her garden, sipping her tea. Her grey eyes were a mimic of his own, just as detached from emotion. To most, they as a pair would look rather intimidating. Lord knew that Mycroft as a boy had found the woman on her own frightening, only learning after he grew more into his face that he shared her features. In some ways, he shared her personality as well.

Their greatest difference, perhaps lay in the largest similarity: Both mother and son had suffered greatly upon discovering that the youngest Holmes was not a girl, but something else entirely. The difference, Mycroft supposed, lay in the fact that Violet Holmes sipped her tea, smiled at him tightly, and then proceeded to ignore the past years as if they were simply an ink blot upon a page.

“Any how is Shyla doing, then? Still keeping up with her… hobbies?”

****

In many ways, Mycroft’s greatest regret was that he mistook his similarities to his mother for kinship, as a reason to idolize her.

He was twelve when his father picked up and left his family, and the elder Holmes could still sometimes hear the screaming rows the normally quiet man and his mother used to have if he thought back on it. Young and a bit of a mummy’s boy to begin with, Mycroft had viewed Arthur’s departure as the final straw, and decided from a young age to cut all ties with the man. His mother did very little not to encourage him, her own hurt and Arthur’s more nonconfrontational nature leading to a long silence that would only be breached in the aftermath of a few significant events. Mycroft grew up under the ruling of a matriarch that did not bend, and as a result he found in many ways he both respected women, and knew that the moment one underestimated them, they would find themselves poisoned without the slightest hint of remorse.

Shyla had been a toddler, and with Violet Holmes still reeling over the loss of her husband, Mycroft found something to attach himself to in the form of his very small, vulnerable baby sister. The first time his parents had arrived home from hospital, the young boy had looked at the baby’s big eyes, the wild curls and tiny hands, and had known somewhere deep in the very chasm of his heart that he was meant to protect her. It was an instinct that would lead him to many headaches later on in life, as Shyla soon proved herself to be in many ways a handful.

She was brilliant, a trait that was far from unexpected. Yet Shyla was also in many ways savagely passionate, and could move with the speed of a panther, Mycroft soon discovered. By four she was climbing furniture, from sofas to bookshelves it made no difference, and by five Shyla was reading textbooks meant for children in their third year. She talked quickly, ran quickly, and observed everything with the chaotic, mad method of a painter bringing to life a canvas within her own mind.

Mycroft loved it, he loved every second of having someone younger than him to teach.

His sister looked to him as a village might look towards a benevolent god, at first. Shyla followed Mycroft like a duckling following its mother, constantly asking questions, wanting to play and explore until the older boy was driven to near distraction by her. He’d often pretend to scowl and huff at the girl’s attention, but secretly it delighted him.

It gave him something he could fix, as nothing seemed to fix the woman he had once known as mummy. Nothing could stop her from missing their father, who had abandoned them. 

Violet Holmes suffered a severe depression after the loss of her husband, something Mycroft would later come to understand and eventually, forgive. Yet it did not excuse in many ways the rigid way in which she treated Shyla, put-off by the girl’s rambunctious behaviour, irritated that the girl seemed less interested in her education and more interested in the history of piracy.

In a hope to perhaps burn out the girl through exercise, she tried to buy Shyla a dog, something which she could care for and hopefully gain some responsibility by.

Mycroft instantly resented the puppy despite himself, as Shyla fell in love with the dumb animal, caught in the thrall of his liquid eyes and fire-red fur. She lost much of her obsession with her brother, instead fixating on an audience that would never reject her theories or games. The pup would wag its tail and follow the girl about avidly, a second-in-command that for once only listened to the youngest’s commands.

_Redbeard_ , the child aptly named it, and true to its name Shyla and the dog spent much of their free afternoons between lessons exploring the land outside their home, pretending to pillage and loot. It was a complete failure of an experiment, and Violet grit her teeth as she found herself feeding the dog, as well as brushing out its coat when it was prone to be tangled. Shyla loved the animal, but she did not take care of the things she loved. Instead, she seemed to prefer to run them into the ground, and Redbeard, her most loyal companion, didn’t seem to object.

The dog was hit by a car by the time Shyla turned nine herself. The driver hadn’t seen the dog, already lunging across the road and on its way to pick up Shyla from the bus stop (as the Irish Setter did every school day). The result left the vet to conclude that there was little to be done for the poor animal, and it was put down despite the shrieking fit Shyla conducted in the waiting room.

Mycroft soon after had to leave for university, and in many ways this combined abandonment served as a catalyst for the chaos that would ensue in the years to come.

He would blame himself, more than anyone, for not seeing it sooner.

School in part was what distracted him from it. Mycroft found that university (to his pleasure) could actually challenge him provided he found the right people, and intellectually his mind soared, politics becoming a chess game in which he situated himself into nicely. He found himself amongst some of the most influential names of the area, future raj's that would soon rule respected businesses and governments alike.

He got distracted by it, and so forgot the little girl back in Essex with their mother. He forgot what it felt like to be living in a home in which he was not the ruler, and most importantly forgot mummy’s temper when someone dared to shift the tables in her family.

The telephone call came to him in the evening, and it rang shrilly and would not be ignored. At first fearing the worst, Mycroft had answered, expecting to hear that something had happened to his family. His sister’s harsh breathing left a tendril of concern twisting in his belly.

_“What is it, Shyla?”_

The person he heard sobbing at the other end sounded terrified, and for a moment his thoughts froze, calculus homework melting away to be replaced with a cold fear. The idea that something had happened to his sister made the irrational side of Mycroft’s thoughts rear in ugly directions, and a part of him felt sick with expectation of the worst.

_“M-Myc..”_

She had sounded so young, only twelve, and he had wondered how much his heart could twist in pain before her heaving sobs put together a garbled tale of monthly bleeds. Instantly Mycroft felt a wave of relief flow through him, followed by irritation. Really, she needn’t have sounded so terrified! His sister had nearly given him a heart-attack!

Of course, what came out of his mouth was perhaps a bit colder.

_“You pulled me away from class because you're upset that a natural function of your body is working? Honestly sister mine, just go find Mummy and tell her. Or explain to a maid at least.”_

His sister’s resounding shriek of denial at the time hadn’t really registered, but it Mycroft had been paying more attention, he would have noticed the high note of desperation in his sister’s voice, the ragged edge to it. He could have stopped it from all happening.

Even now, he berated himself over the fact that a part of his mind was still focused on the calculus question that had sat before him, solving equations while his sister experienced an existential shift in her very brain that would lead to everything falling apart.

****

_A phase._

Mycroft first thought it in a way of sort of denying what was happening, hoping against hope that Shyla wasn’t so stupid as to choose such a path.

_It has to be some kind of phase. An act of rebellion against our mother._

Shyla sat both mummy and Mycroft down during his winter hols when she was sixteen, a few weeks after their father had come and visited. She had breathed sharply through her nose, and flatly spoke while meeting neither of their eyes, and Mycroft to this day could still remember how her hands had tapped on her leg with suppressed nerves.

“My name is William Scott Sherlock Holmes. I am a boy, inside. I don’t like the name Shyla, or any of my other birth names honestly. I am not a girl.”

The statement had been met with silence. Thick like cotton-wool, it wrapped about the kitchen, the tea mugs set before them, untouched and now undrinkable. Shyla continued to look down at her hands, which tightened and loosened at uneven intervals in her lap. Her chin clenched as if expecting a blow. Mycroft through the blank haze of his own mind suddenly screaming _fix this and fix it now!_ noted that his sister’s skin was littered with tiny scratches and acne, a sign of severe skin picking. Like that observation opened a floodgate, Mycroft found himself flicking his gaze over his sister’s hunched form, taking in everything he had willingly dismissed.

_Thinner, than I last saw her. Missed meals and stress, her chest is being bound flat by something, just barely visible under the collar of her jumper. Hair cut shorter than usual- mummy hadn’t liked it but she had lied and told her it was the hairdresser’s fault. Shaking, caffeine high. Possibly nicotine. Insomnia, dark circles under the eyes and a general listlessness to her posture. Depression._

__

That was all the time he had to observe however, as his mother was the first to regain her voice out of the two of them. It cut across the room like a blade, and Shyla hunched away from it as if it were acid.

“Does this have to do with your father’s visit?”

Mycroft watched as his sister’s eyes narrowed minutely, blue orbs flat. _Protective of our father. Why?_

“How would this have anything to do with him?” She quipped back quietly, tilting her chin a little in defiance. Mycroft watched as those hands, so unsteady a moment ago turned to stone. There was a fighting spark in Shyla’s eyes, something rabid waiting to be unleashed. His mother didn’t appear to notice, or perhaps she didn’t quite care. She too, had the same spark of violence in her gaze.

“You’ve never said anything about this before. It seems a bit sudden, doesn’t it? Is this a new trend that kids at school are trying, or are you just trying to _torment_ me as per usual?”

Mycroft blinked a little at the remark, rather taken aback. That… it did _not_ sound like his mother. That was far meaner than he remembered her to be. He suddenly felt as if he were afloat in a family dynamic that he had not been a part of in too long, watching as if from underwater as his sister bared her teeth in open hatred of the woman across from them.

“You’d know a lot about _tormenting_ people, wouldn’t you?”

“Grounding you isn’t torment, it’s discipline for doing stupid things.”

“It is when the things I’m doing aren’t stupid to anyone but _you.”_ Shyla snorted, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. Her voice dropped, a deliberate attempt to not let it lift instead and reach dangerously close to a soprano. “It’s not to torment you, it’s to keep me sane. I’m _Sherlock,_ mum. Why would I do this for anyone but myself?”

The woman’s expression only darkened at the confrontation, and she tapped the spoon for her tea in irritation against the side of the cup. Abruptly she turned to Mycroft, cool blue-grey eyes seeking his counsel, or rather his support.

 _“Tell her_ she’s being foolish. This isn’t something she can just whip up out of thin air and use as leverage. This is an action that a sixteen year old girl is not responsible enough to make.”

Mycroft, feeling rather like he was suddenly caught between two snarling jackals looked from woman to woman, feeling Shyla’s pleading as well as his mother’s steady gaze. The unspoken demand of pick rang through him, and it was not a decision he could possibly prepare himself for. He had just gotten back from uni, and didn’t want to upset either of them.

Yet Shyla… she was always stirring up trouble it seemed. He didn’t like to think that this might be a rather underhanded cry for attention, but truth be told it wouldn’t have surprised him much. She was constantly blowing up things, lying to people and even once when she had been younger she’d gone to a police investigation, accusing the police of “bad investigating” and claiming that some child had been murdered instead of drowned.

As if sensing the wavering in his mind, Shyla’s blue eyes seemed suddenly wider. The hard clench of her jaw softened to make room for the quietest, hurt breath, and to Mycroft’s surprise began to tremble ever so slightly. Quick as a flash though the expression was gone. What returned was an ice mask, one that Mycroft to his own surprise recognised as a mimicry of his own.

“Forget it.” Shyla muttered, spitting the words out as if they were poison. She shoved herself away from the table, stalking despite their mother’s protests towards her room. Her mutterings were only barely legible, but they sent something twisting in Mycroft’s gut. “I _knew_ this was a bad idea.”

For once, the elder Holmes thought perhaps he had made a fatal error when it came to his sibling. His mother however soon forced the issue out of his mind, attempting to smooth things out by small-talk and fresh tea.

Later, Mycroft would hear Shyla crying in her bedroom, the sounds muffled and small.

He would roll over in his bed, a frown on his face as he remembered the little baby girl that had come fresh from the hospital smelling of talcum and milk, and wondered if somewhere, something had gone wrong.

****

The phase did not cease with their mother’s rejection.

Rather, it grew like black mould, hidden carefully out of sight but visible to those who looked. Mycroft spent the rest of his summer wincing in sympathy for his sibling’s ribs as she bound her chest down, cringing over how she’d deliberately pitch her voice lower to piss their mother off.

Worse, he’d spend nights listening to that same quiet crying, as well as a violin being played with sickly-sweet mourning.

The summer was a long one, and a part of him wished that he had just accepted an acquaintance’s invitation to spend it somewhere warm and sunny, rather than Essex. When it came time to leave, he all but leapt for the nearest train, unable to help his sister and unwilling to tolerate a second more of his mother’s particular brand of guilt mechanisms, something which had only grown worse over the years.

Mycroft hopped on a train still believing that his sister only needed time to work herself out, that she would eventually straighten things herself. After all, she seemed to have no desire for his aid since that morning at the beginning of the holidays. Rather, Shyla seemed stubbornly determined to survive without the help of either her sibling or her parents at all.

It would be just about a year when Mycroft would get the news: his sister had run away from home, and seemed to have absolutely no intention of returning home. He would not receive this information from his mother, but rather via Arthur, calling him late in the evening. It would be during the election, and he would get the phone call from his new work desk (a minor position, but he was confident he would work his way up with time).

The sound of his estranged parent’s voice down the line would make Mycroft’s hands clench into fists at his side, but his words would make his heart twist in his chest with unease.

Sherlock or Shyla, whichever his sibling picked, the youngest Holmes did not do well without someone looking after them.

****

Transsexuals as a general rule did not fare well in British society.

Really, there were few places in general that they fared well.

Mycroft was faced with rather a staggering amount of morbid statistics as he began his research. The numbers seemed to swell before his eyes, and despite his determination to remain impartial (and unbiased) a part of him could not get the image of his sister out of his mind while reading about victims of beatings, sexual assault, suicide and murder. It seemed like a staggeringly disproportionate amount for such a small minority of the British population, and as three days passed into a week without Sherlock safely home, a steady migraine shook in his skull that made him want to turn back to smoking.

He did not have the resources he would one day have, and so it was considered mostly luck that the police did eventually find the teenager. An anonymous tip lead them to a filthy flat in Camden, where Shyla was dragged back like an unwilling wildcat was brought back to a zoo. Mycroft could hear the cutting deductions before he had even been lead into the waiting room, his sister’s voice ringing out and bitingly acerbic towards her handlers. Upon sighting her, the elder Holmes could not help but not give the slightest damn towards her language, his chest instead welling with relief, his sister returned to him hale and whole, if not a bit dirtier and thinner.

Shyla refused to be touched, not even in the kindest of ways. She swore at Mycroft upon seeing him, loudly snarled at the sergeant that held her in detainment while the elder Holmes signed her release papers, and eventually fell into a boiling silence that lasted the duration of the car ride home.

In the back seat of the car, Mycroft watched as his sister seemed to curl in on herself, only falling silent to instead shake apart with quiet despair. The sight made the elder Holmes’ hands clench for a moment on the steering wheel, white-knuckled.  

The statistics he had read haunted him for the entire drive home, circulating before his eyes.

It mingled eventually with Shyla’s mutinous, burning gaze which seemed determined to bore a hole into the back of his neck.

****

“You go to school.”

The crux of the agreement was struck up after an evening in which the two siblings both had a rather tense heart-to-heart, long after their mother had finished her own lecturing.

Mycroft’s condition had at first made the girl snort, her gaze sliding away from the elder Holmes’ face.

She had showered, at least. There wasn’t as much dirt lining her face, and with the clean up it was evident to see just how tired his sibling was. Her voice was raspy, the result of having free range to nick and smoke cigarettes whenever she chose.

 _“Dull.”_ She flicked a hand at him, waving the demand away. Mycroft took a careful breath through his nose, gritting his teeth and carefully controlling his temper.

_“Not_ dull. Important, and _necessary._ You go to school, get into a good university. _Graduate.”_

“There’s not much point, is there?” She replied mulishly, a frown turning down her features. Shyla picked at her hands absently, peeling the skin away from the cuticles of her nail beds. “No one’s going to hire someone like me. You think as much, I _know_ you do. Mummy thinks so too.”

“I don’t care what you think I think.” Mycroft growled, rolling his eyes. “The fact of the matter is that you have a brilliant mind, and it is slandered acting like this.”

Shyla’s eyes narrowed threateningly in response, and the elder Holmes changed tactic, hovering too close to the edge of I do not accept this, Shyla. It was too soon, too raw to argue that point at the moment. Mycroft knew it would get nowhere. Sighing through his nose, he rolled his shoulders and looked at his sibling, preparing to offer an ultimatum.

“There are… Doctors. Specialists that can… make your desired appearance, your identity...More of a reality.”

His sister appeared to have stopped breathing, curled as she was in the wide back of the family’s armchair. She fixed Mycroft suddenly with a piercing, hungry gaze, disbelief and impossible desperation suddenly flitting over her features. Shyla quickly smoothed over that impulse, but her hand was clearly shown before she could manage it. Still, she kept a deliberately detached tone to her voice.

“Do you have a point to this roundabout discussion or am I to die of boredom before you get to your topic of choice?”

Mycroft looked carefully at his own hands, for a moment hesitating to offer. He did not agree with Shyla’s choices… he did not see why his sister insisted upon being different from the rest, why her own brilliance couldn’t be enough of an abnormality from her peers. Yet… his mother’s complete and total ignorance in the situation chafed him wrongly, made him feel as if he were not listening to his siblings needs. He could see himself adjusting eventually, getting used to his sister’s- brother’s new identity with time. Time, and patience. Yet for now, he still was not sure that this wasn’t just another experiment in his sibling’s mind. He wasn’t sure if it was just Shyla had been forced too long to fit a female role that did not suit her, so much as an actual gender identity crisis.

“You will go to school, and live in a dorm if you have no desire to live with mummy or I. You will keep your grades up, and exchange mandatory letters with me on a semi-regular basis to keep me informed of your needs. In exchange,” He hesitated, before making up his mind and nodding as if to himself. “In exchange I will give you access to a trust fund I’ve been building with our parents, in order to fund medication and… only after you turn eighteen… surgery.”

Mycroft waited expectantly for some kind of reply, yet after a moment he chanced a look up and saw that Shyla had become like stone, her blue-grey eyes fixated on him and yet at the middle-distance. Like a deer trapped in the headlights, she seemed scarcely to be breathing. Her age was suddenly evident all over her features, and she trembled minutely, a shake that went from her spine to her toes. The elder Holmes frowned minutely, momentarily wondering if he had said something that had offended her.

A moment later Shyla was out of her seat, leaping up and barely suppressing a whoop of joy before seeming to collect herself. She stood before him in her pyjamas, a colt uncertain of which direction to go.

Her breathless words would still occasionally bring a small smile to the elder Holmes’ features, if only because in that moment, he caught a glimpse of the small toddler once more, after a treasure in their backyard.

 _“Chemistry._ I’ll study Chemistry.”

****

The lazy afternoon sun seemed to seep into the very sheets, loaning them a butter-gold tinge that made Sherlock have to squint to see the figure lying sleepily atop of him. John’s hair appeared to be made of sunlight itself in the light, the past few days filled with a hectic case leaving the good doctor thoroughly exhausted. The two had fallen into bed last night without hesitation or thought, curling up in Sherlock’s room and allowing sleep to take them both.

Sherlock couldn’t seem to stop stroking his fingertips through the man’s closely-cropped hair that morning, noticing with some annoyance the small nicks and chips in the paint that still adorned his nails. Plum purple, it stuck out a bit like bruises, almost the same shade as the shiner the suspect had given John during their pursuit. The detective would remove the colour later, it no longer sitting completely right with him.

For now though he could wait, caught up in the warmth of the compact body that lay on top of him, absorbed in memorizing the brutal, savage lines of the scar that had brought John to him, a veritable hand-grenade of a man that completely rearranged his existence.

He thought to himself that he could spend hours just in bed, tracing the mark and mapping out the man’s freckles, the lines of his war-made tan and the charming lines around his mouth and eyes.

Sadly, it was not to be. John soon stirred, his own internal clock unwilling to let him sleep past seven, years of army training leaving him a habitually early riser. The man yawned against the silvery scars on Sherlock’s bare chest, blinking up sleepily at the man and smiling in a way that completely besotted and entirely too sentimental. His voice was thick, raspy with sleep, and it stirred something hungry and desirous low in Sherlock’s abdomen.

“Hey there, Love. Did you sleep at all?”

Wordlessly Sherlock nodded an affirmative to John. He had managed a few hours, and though it wouldn’t be enough for most to claim as a “restful” slumber, it was enough for the detective to function.

John traced a hand gently over the man’s collar-bones absently, and something in his dark blue eyes seemed to suggest that he knew Sherlock was fibbing, just a little. An amused smile quirked on his lips, and he curled closer to nuzzle the underside of the detective’s jaw. The rasp of John’s stubble burned pleasurably along the sensitive skin found there. Sherlock couldn’t help but note absently the firm, warm press of John’s cock against his thigh. The feeling was not unpleasant, but the familiar edge of expectation made his nerves skitter a bit. He worked to restrain them, and had gotten better, but still his partner seemed to sense the minute tension in his shoulders.

Sleepily, John blinked once in confusion before realising.

When he did he flushed, the colour going from his neck to his ears rapidly.

“Oh shit, _sorry._ Don’t, don’t feel obliged to do something it’s just… um. well… er. _Happy_ to see you I guess.” He laughed, the sound awkward, and made to move away from Sherlock’s hip. The action was intolerable, and altogether mildly mortifying. “I’ll just, um. Go take care of things then come back for a cuddle, yeah? Let me just-”

_“John.”_

Sherlock spoke over the man’s babbling firmly and quietly, holding his partner in place with one arm. John stilled, looking up at Sherlock with an apology and trepidation on his features. It was little wonder why, given the detective’s tendency towards panic-attacks in previous encounters were Sherlock identified as, well, Male.

Biting his lip a little in consideration, the detective forced himself to calm, making sure to keep his voice pitched low. Confidence, that would convince John more than anything else. Confidence and honesty. He watched as John sucked in a small breath as Sherlock turned more fully towards him, one hand slipping down from his partner’s shoulder to graze along his abdomen. Sherlock kept his gaze fixed on his partner’s face, fingers teasing along the hem of the man’s pants, skimming the barest breath inside the waistband.

“I am not afraid of you. Or of this.” Sherlock breathed quietly, his long fingers dipping down, cupping warm heat and causing John to let loose a small sound that could be a question or a gasp. “I merely require time, to adjust. To remember that it’s you, and not someone else with me. I need to keep my head, to not get lost in memories.” Sherlock stroked experimentally, and was rewarded with a small moan of pleasure. It shot through him, made his blood hum. He licked his lips, watching John stare at him, uncharacteristically the one left helpless in this situation.

“Sh-Sher-”

“I am _sure,_ John. I want this. I want _you.”_ Sherlock guessed John’s question, and his mouth couldn’t help but capture the doctor’s, swiping a tongue against John’s lips even as his hand began to pick up speed, teasing. “You need to trust me.” the detective murmured against the man’s lips. “You need to trust me and let me do this, at my own pace, no coddling. Do you trust me, John?”

John made a garbled sound, something agreeable that could mean _I trust you_ or could mean _fuck, please don’t stop._ Either way, it was supremely gratifying, and Sherlock’s body ached a bit in response. The detective nipped then at John’s lips one last time before ducking lower, finding the man’s neck and making him squirm.

It would be over somewhat embarrassingly soon for John, the army doctor left breathless and so in love with the man before him, squinting and laughing up at him from the pillow across from him.

Sherlock would not let John touch him after the man came. Still, he would agree to have John watch, even as the detective’s fingers dipped downwards, underneath the waistband of his own pants. It was perhaps not perfect, but it was progress, and watching Sherlock squirm as he rubbed his own cock made John’s toes curl. When his lover began to twitch, to rock his hips into his own hand and look somewhat vacant and breathless, John would think there wasn’t a lovelier sight. Both of them would agree that they felt lucky, to be able to curl back up in each other’s arms afterwards.

So of course, it only made sense that a phone call would perhaps ruin the moment, shrill and plaintive in the bedroom. Sherlock cursed at the timing of his brother, recognising the ring-tone. His muttered abuses towards the invention of telephone calls would cause John to smile, even as he wriggled deeper into the warmth of the bed covers.

That smile would disappear as Sherlock answered with a snappy “What?” and the army doctor felt his lover go rigid with tension. It was as if someone had sucked all of the air out of the room abruptly, and John lifted his head in curiosity and concern, only to find Sherlock sitting up in silence, the mobile pressed to his ear. The detective appeared to have gone completely blank, his face a mask of forced impassivity that John did not believe for a second.

“Love?” John questioned, concerned with the man’s unresponsiveness. Sherlock suddenly hung up, pressing his thumb against the button slowly without replying to Mycroft’s muffled inquiries. The hand that held the mobile fell into the detective’s lap lifelessly, forgotten and ignored. Sherlock however continued to stare ahead, his expression frighteningly blank. Running his tongue over his teeth in concern, John stroked a hand over his partner’s shoulders. His voice was low with distress. “Sherlock? What’s wrong?”

The detective as if hearing him from under the deep knell of a snowbank looked at him slowly, blinking. When he replied, his voice was small, utterly calm but barely legible. Still, John felt confusion.

“My mother. She’s invited us for dinner.”

John frowned, wondering about the inordinate reaction. Cautiously, he attempted to glean the reason for Sherlock’s distress.

“And? From what I’ve learned at least, you’ve refused to visit for years now. You can do that now, you know. I wouldn’t blame you, given your history.”

“She’s having surgery, this weekend.” Sherlock stated, and John felt his blood run cold, freeze to ice in his bones. His lover looked shell-shocked. “They think it might be cancerous. It’s in the lungs. She didn’t tell anyone, but if it is the tumour is big enough to be terminal.”

Sherlock lifted his head then, looking at John finally. His expression was lost, and he seemed for a moment impossibly young with the way his wild curls stuck up about his head and his eyes were wide. Though he did not outwardly show distress, the detective’s voice held the smallest tremble as he uttered the unutterable.

“My mother might die.”


End file.
